298 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



to be a very small matter, but it serves the triungulin 

 for several days ; and then the insect casts its first 

 skin and appears in a different form. It now more 

 closely resembles the grub of the cockchafer, and 

 is capable of floating on the honey and of feeding 

 upon it. But how many of its kindred, hatched 

 from the multitudinous eggs of the same mother 

 beetle, have perished ! In due time it consumes 

 all the honey, changes into a chrysalis, and finally 

 into a perfect Oil Beetle. 



There is another beetle rare in this country 

 named Sitaris, which curiously goes through a 

 similar experience, also in connection with an 

 Antho'phora bee. It is more plentiful in the South 

 of France than it is with us, and Fabre has managed 

 to work out its life-history with tolerable com- 

 pleteness, a matter of considerable difficulty, as 

 will be understood from the following brief state- 

 ment : 



Sitaris humeralis is not so prolific as Meloe, but 

 she lays at least two thousand eggs, and takes care 

 to place them in the ground very near to the 

 burrows of Antbophora. This happens some time 

 in August, and the eggs hatch about the end of 

 September. There are well-stored honey-cells 

 close at hand, and one would expect that the little 

 black Sitaris triungulins would at once go to them 

 and begin feeding. But the sensation of hunger 

 is at present unknown to them ; they simply 

 huddle together and pass the winter where they 

 were born. 



