The Primary Larva of the Shares 



cell, it tries to escape as soon as it has per- 

 ceived the shifting nature of the sticky soil 

 upon which it was about to enter; but, totter- 

 ing at every step, because of the viscous 

 matter clinging to its feet, it often ends by 

 falling back into the honey, where it dies of 

 suffocation. 



Again, we may experiment as follows: 

 having prepared a cell as before, we place 

 a larva most carefully on its inner wall, or 

 else on the surface of the food itself. In 

 the first case, the larva hastens to leave the 

 cell; in the second case, it struggles awhile 

 on the surface of the honey and ends by 

 getting so completely caught that, after a 

 thousand efforts to gain the shore, it is swal- 

 lowed up in the viscous lake. 



In short, all attempts to establish the 

 Sitaris-grub in an Anthophora-cell provi- 

 sioned with honey and furnished with an egg 

 are no more successful than those which I 

 made with cells whose store of food had 

 already been broached by the larva of the 

 Bee, as described above. It is therefore cer- 

 tain that the Sitaris-grub does not leave the 

 fleece of the Mason-bee when the Bee is in 

 her cell or at the entrance to it, in order 

 itself to make a rush for the coveted honey; 

 for this honey would inevitably cause its 

 75 



