XV. 



H IRemarfeable HMstor. 



THE story of the gall-flies related in our last article, 

 reminds one of another very curious piece of insect 

 history which is well worth the telling, if only by way 

 of illustrating the remarkable complexity of habits into 

 which animals are now and then wont to fall. The 

 subject of this history is a small beetle known under 

 the name of Sitaris, and to M. Fabre, an ingenious 

 and painstaking entomologist, we are indebted for the 

 details of its life-phases. The Sitaris itself is in no- 

 wise a remarkable animal. It is a beetle of small size, 

 which ranks among its near neighbours the blister- 

 beetles and other familiar forms. To understand the 

 story of this erratic insect we must begin by regard- 

 ing the ways and works of another and different insect, 

 a species of bee (Anthophora). 



In its mode of life this bee is peculiar enough. 

 Away in Provence, M. Fabre tells us, there exists a 

 hard sandstone whose strata are interspersed with 

 softer layers : and within these softer layers the bee 

 burrows, as a kind of insect quarryman. Its nests 

 are found in the shape of these subterranean galleries, 

 each gallery or passage leading to a cell intended for 

 the reception of the bee's egg. Now, in the autumn 

 season, the Sitaris bee-tie proceeds to the domicile of 



