128 COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



of their legs when they are handled. The colour of 

 these Beetles is dull, dark indigo blue, and they are 



wingless, slow - moving in- 

 sects, especially the females, 

 so that they have no chance 

 of escaping from capture, to 

 which their very conspicuous 

 shape renders them liable. 



The life history of the 

 Oil Beetle is a very curious 

 one. The female Beetle de- 



Meloe cicatricosis (female). . . 1-1 



posits in little holes in the 



ground a vast number of the tiniest imaginable yellow 

 eggs, placing several thousands in each hole. As 

 soon as the eggs are hatched, the larvae make their 

 way into the open air. They are most extraordinary 

 creatures, and no one who saw the newly-hatched 

 and the full-grown larva of this Beetle would ever 

 imagine that they could be the same creature, and in 

 the same stage of metamorphosis. They are scarcely 

 so large as the semicolon (;) used in this work, and 

 are long-bodied, furnished with six long and prehen- 

 sile legs, and gifted with great activity. As 

 soon as they reach the open air, they climb 

 Meioe, young the stems of flowers and gain the blossoms, 



larva, magni- ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ p resently & ^ 



comes to gather honey or pollen, when the little larva 

 leaves the flower, climbs upon the bee, and clings to 

 its body with its clasping legs. 



The bee, unconscious of its new burden, goes as 

 usual to its nest, when the larva quits its hold, and 

 remains in the nest. The parent bee being gone, 



