THE ADVENTURES OF A GRUB 111 



the rigours of winter ; she does not even attempt to stop up 

 the entrance-lobby in which she has placed them, and so 

 protect them from the thousand enemies that threaten them. 

 For as long as the frosts of whiter have not arrived these 

 open galleries are trodden by Spiders and other plunderers, 

 for whom the eggs would make an agreeable meal. 



The better to observe them, I placed a number of the 

 eggs in boxes ; and when they hatched out about the end 

 of September I imagined they would at once start off in search 

 of an Anthophora-cell. I was entirely wrong. The young 

 grubs little black creatures no more than the twenty-fifth 

 of an inch long did not move away, though provided with 

 vigorous legs. They remained higgledy-piggledy, mixed up 

 with the skins of the eggs whence they came. In vain I 

 placed within their reach lumps of earth containing open 

 Bee-cells : nothing would tempt them to move. If I forcibly 

 removed a few from the common heap, they at once hurried 

 back to it in order to hide themselves among the rest. 



At last, to assure myself that the Sitaris-grubs, in the 

 free state, do not disperse after they are hatched, I went in 

 the winter to Carpentras and inspected the banks inhabited 

 by the Anthophorse. There, as in my boxes, I found the grubs 

 all piled up in heaps, all mixed up with the skins of the eggs. 



I was no nearer answering the question : how does the 

 Sitaris get into the Bees' cells, and into a shell that does 

 not belong to it ? 



II 



THE FIRST ADVENTURE 



The appearance of the young Sitaris showed me at once 

 that its habits must be peculiar. It could not, I saw, be 

 called on to move on an ordinary surface. The spot where 

 this larva has to live evidently exposes it to the risk of many 

 dangerous falls, since, in order to prevent them, it is equipped 

 with a pair of powerful mandibles, curved and sharp ; robust 



