CHAPTER V 



HYPERMETAMORPHOSIS 



DY a Machiavellian stratagem the pri- 

 *■' mary larva of the Oil-beetle or the 

 Sitaris has penetrated the Anthophora's cell; 

 it has settled on the egg, which is its first 

 food and its life-raft in one. What becomes 

 of it once the egg is exhausted? 



Let us, to begin with, go back to the larva 

 of the Sitaris. By the end of a week the 

 Anthophora's egg has been drained dry by 

 the parasite and is reduced to the envelope, 

 a shallow skiff which preserves the tiny 

 creature from the deadly contact of the 

 honey. It is on this skiff that the first trans- 

 formation takes place, whereafter the larva, 

 which is now organized to live in a glutinous 

 environment, drops off the raft into the pool 

 of honey and leaves its empty skin, split 

 along the back, clinging to the pellicle of the 

 egg. At this stage we see floating motion- 

 less on the honey a milk-white atom, oval, 

 flat and a twelfth of an inch long. This is 

 the larva of the Sitaris in its new form. 

 With the aid of a lens we can distinguish the 

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