The Primary Larva of the Oil-Beetles 



While my enthusiasm had not had time to 

 cool at the sight, momentarily repeated, of 

 a young Sitaris perched upon an Antho- 

 phora's egg floating in the centre of the little 

 pool of honey, it might well have burst all 

 restraints on beholding the contents of one 

 of these cells. On the black, liquid honey a 

 wrinkled pellicle is floating; and on this pelli- 

 cle, motionless, is a yellow louse. The pelli- 

 cle is the empty envelope of the Anthophora's 

 egg; the louse is a Meloe-larva. 



The story of this larva becomes self-evi- 

 dent. The young Meloe leaves the down 

 of the Bee at the moment when the egg is 

 laid; and, since contact with the honey would 

 be fatal to the grub, it must, in order to save 

 itself, adopt the tactics followed by the 

 Sitaris, that is to say, it must allow itself to 

 drop on the surface of the honey with the 

 egg which is in the act of being laid. There, 

 its first task is to devour the egg which serves 

 it for a raft, as is attested by the empty 

 envelope on which it still remains; and it is 

 after this 'meal, the only one that it takes so 

 long as it retains its present form, that it 

 must commence its long series of transfor- 

 mations and feed upon the honey amassed 

 by the Anthophora. This was the reason 

 of the complete failure both of my attempts 

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