78 HEREDITARY CHARACTERS 



Cantharidie, is a parasite upon the solitary bee Anthophora. 

 The female Sitaris lays over 2000 eggs, burying them in 

 the earth near the entrance to the nests of the bee. These 

 eggs hatch, producing larvae which possess six legs, as is 

 usual in the larvae of beetles. The larvae are triungulins, 

 that is, they possess three claws at the extremity of each 

 leg. This is exceptional among beetle larva?. The larvae 

 hibernate until the following spring, when they become 

 active. They do not, however, try to enter the nests of the 

 bees, but attach themselves to any hairy object that happens 

 to approach them. No discrimination is shown in the choice 

 of an object beyond the fact that it must be hairy. The 

 majority of the larvae are doomed to extermination, for they 

 attach themselves to any hairy object with which they come 

 in contact, and there is a vastly greater number of chances 

 that they will fix upon the wrong than upon the right insect. 

 They have been found upon hairy beetles, flies, and bees 

 of the wrong kind. Those, however, which are fortunate 

 enough to chance upon Anthophora, are carried to the nest. 

 Now the male Anthophora appears about a month earlier 

 than the females, therefore most Sitaris that arrive at their 

 proper destination are attached to the males. They transfer 

 themselves, however, to the female. When the female Antho- 

 phora lays her eggs in the cells of the nest, the triungulin larva 

 slips off her body on to the egg she has just deposited upon 

 the honey. Here the larva remains, balanced carefully upon 

 the egg, for if it left it for the honey, it would be drowned. 

 The bee then seals up the cell, and the larva proceeds to 

 eat the egg, living upon its contents for about eight days. 

 It remains in the shell of the egg during this time, for it 

 would be suffocated if it came into contact with the honey. 

 At this period the larva moults, and appears in a form 

 specially adapted to floating upon the honey which is to 

 be its food for the next six weeks. The legs of the triungulin 

 stage have disappeared together with the other appendages, 

 and the larva now seems but little more than a vesicle. It 

 is shaped, however, in such a way that one surface must 



