414 Farasitic Beetles. 



state, are found in flowers, where it is possible that they may 

 deposit their eggs, which would be readily (inadvertently) 

 carried to their nests by the visiting bees. 



Meloe comprises the well-known " Oil-beetles" — huge, 

 clumsy, wingless, fat, blue-black insects, with short over- 

 lapping sytra, and of feeble development — frequently seen 

 crawling heavily in early spring on commons and waste lands, 

 especially among butter-cups, and conspicuous for their nasty 

 peculiarity of exuding a clear yellow oil from their joints when 

 handled, which has in bygone times (with many more nauseous 

 remedies) been in favour for the purposes of medicine. The 

 female deposits separate batches of small yellow ova, thousands 

 at a time, but on a diminishing scale after the first laying. 

 These ova are agglutinated, and dropped into small holes in 

 the ground previously dug by her ; and from them, after a 

 period of from three to six weeks, as the heat of the weather 

 varies, the young larv£e are hatched, being then long, flat, 

 yellow, with longish legs and four hairs at their hinder apex, 

 resembling, in short, small bird-lice. For a time they keep 

 torpid ; but, on being sufficiently roused by increased warmth, 

 course about certain low plants'' (chiefly Ranunculacece) with 

 wonderful rapidity of motion. From these plants they fasten, 

 sometimes in great quantities, on the hairy bees that are busy 

 about the flowers : at times, also, getting attached in error to 

 some equally hairy species of Volucella (Dipterous insects 

 superficially much resembling bees), that also settle on their 

 temporary lodgings. Of course, in the latter case, the attach- 

 ment is not a lucky one for the parasite : as the fly makes no 

 nest to which it can be transported, and it must perforce 

 starve. It is probably the chance of this, added to the nume- 

 rous lucky combinations that must take place before the Meloe 

 larvas can reach its destined haven, that causes the parent 

 beetle to deposit so large a number of ova ; and there can be 

 no doubt that the produce of one female would, if it all came 

 to maturity, outnumber vastly all the perfect insects that would 

 be seen by any one observer in his lifetime. 



Supposing that the larva has been carried by the uncon- 

 scious bee to its nest, it devours the egg of the latter therein 

 contained, and changes into a second form (not unlike the 

 larva of a small Lamelhcorn beetle, being cylindrical, arched, 

 and possessing stout legs and toothed mandibles), subsisting 

 on the food laid up by the bee for its own young. After some 

 time the second condition of the larva changes its outer skin, 

 which is not, however, entirely shed, but remains wrinkled up 

 at the hinder extremity of the body ; it is then arched, com- 

 posed of thirteen segments, contracted at each end, and 

 motionless. This is called the false pupa, and from it (pro- 



