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TEXT-BOOK OF ENTOMOLOGY 



Meloe, and the third larva (/) is thick-bodied, with short thoracic 

 legs. 



In the complicated life-history of another cantharid, Epicauta vit- 

 tata, as worked out by Elley (Fig. 642), we have the same acquisition 

 of new habits and forms after the first larval stage, which evi- 

 dently were at the outset the result of an adaptation to a change of 

 food and surroundings. The female Epicauta lays its eggs in the 

 same warm, sunny situation as that chosen by locusts (Caloptenus) 

 for depositing their eggs. On hatching, the active minute carnivor- 

 ous triunguliu, ever on the search for eggs, on happening upon a 

 locust egg gnaws into it, and then sucks the contents. A second 

 egg is attacked and its contents exhausted, when, owing to its com- 



\ 



FIG. 642. Ep icnuta cinerea : a, end of 2d larval stage; b, portion of dorsal skin; <. if. 

 coarctate larva; e.f, pupa. After Kiley. 



paratively inactive habits and rich nourishing food after a period of 

 inactivity and rest, the skin splits along its back, and at about the 

 eighth day from beginning to take food the second larva appears, 

 with much smaller and shorter legs, a much smaller head, and with 

 reduced mouth-parts. This is the carabidoid stage of Kiley. After 

 feeding for about a week in the egg a second moult occurs, and the 

 change of form is slight, though the mouth-parts and legs are still 

 more rudimentary, and the body assumes " the clumsy aspect of the 

 typical lamellicorn larva." This Kiley denominates the scarabaeidoid 

 stage of the second larva. 



After six or seven days there is another transformation, the skin 

 being cast, and the insect passes into another stage, " the ultimate 

 stage of the second larva." The larva, immersed in its rich nutri- 

 tions food, grows rapidly, and after about a week leaves the now 

 addled and decaying locust eggs, and burrows into the clear sand, 

 where it lies on its side in a smooth cell or cavity, and where it 

 undergoes an incomplete ecdysis, the skin not being completely 

 shed, and assumes the semi-pupa stage, or coarctate larval stage of 

 Kiley. 



In the spring the partly loose skin is rent on the top of the head 



