The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



Meloe-larva in its transformations. It was 

 certainly cicatricosus whose larvae I had 

 been studying; it was certainly this insect 

 which ravaged the cells of the Mason-bee, 

 for I found it dead in the old galleries which 

 it had been unable to leave. This oppor- 

 tunity, which did not occur again, promised 

 me an ample harvest. I had to give it all 

 up. My Thursday was drawing to a close ; 

 I had to return to Avignon, to resume my 

 lessons on the electrophorus and the Tori- 

 cellian tube. O happy Thursdays! What 

 glorious opportunities I lost because you were 

 too short! 



We will go back a year to continue this 

 history. I collected, under far less favour- 

 able conditions, it is true, enough notes to 

 map out the biography of the tiny creature 

 which we have just seen migrating from the 

 camomile-flowers to the Anthophora's back. 

 From what I have said of the Sitaris-larvae, 

 it is plain that the Meloe-larvae perched, like 

 the former, on the back of a Bee, have but 

 one aim: to get themselves conveyed by this 

 Bee to the victualled cells. Their object is 

 not to live for a time on the body that carries 

 them. 



Were it necessary to prove this, it would 

 be enough to say that we never see these 

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