222 Marvels of the Universe 



The courtship takes place in May, and the female lays her eggs on the egg-masses of the ants. 

 The egg, which is ver}' like that of an ant, is exceedingly difficult to detect. The young grub hatches 

 from the egg in a very short time, and proceeds to feed on the brood of its host. The ants not only 

 feed it by mouth (this has been proved by feeding the ants with honej- coloured red, when the red 

 colour can be traced in the intestinal canal of the little grub through its transparent skin), but they 

 place it on their own grubs. The beetle grub is very like that of an ant, and though it possesses 

 six short legs, it does not use them, and imitates the behaviour of an ant grub. The ants pa\' it 

 the greatest attention, and when danger threatens the nest they carry it iirst into safety. It is 

 extremely voracious, and devours large quantities of the ants' grubs. In nests where the beetle 

 has been a dweller for some years a decrease is produced in the number of worker ants. Now, as is 

 well known, ants create females by feeding their grubs on special food, and to try and make up for 

 this loss of worker ants they try to turn grubs which they have started to bring up as females into 

 workers. The change, however, is too late, and the result is what are called false females. These are 



neither females nor perfect 

 workers, but of an interme- 

 diate form which does not 

 work or bite. These nests 

 i are the centres from which 

 I the beetle spreads to other 



i nests. At first the beetle 



is kept in check by the ants 

 digging up its chrysalis and 

 carrying it about as they 

 do their own cocoons, which 

 of course kills a delicate 

 beetle chrysalis ; but as 

 more false female ants are 

 produced, fewer chrysalids 

 are disturbed, till at last 

 the destruction of the ant 

 colony is brought about. 

 piioto su] [//. Donhiimrpe, F.z.s. This beetle is spread 



over the whole of Europe 

 and North and Ce 

 Asia as far as Thibet. 



BEETLE FEEDING THE ANT. 



In this photo the ant is seen licking up the sweet substance that exudes from small i xT j.i- j /^ x i 



.,,,.,, and North and Central 



openings on the beetle s back. 



THE SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE 



BY FRANK T. BULLEN, F.R.G.S. 



Prodigious in size, even among mammals that are noted for their vast proportions, the Sulphur- 

 Bottom Whale (to give it the trivial name conferred upon it by whalemen) is more enveloped in 

 mystery than any other of the whales, for various reasons, some of which will here be shown. But 

 first of all, a brief description of the mighty animal is necessary. It is a toothless whale, having 

 in place of teeth a series of plates of baleen (whalebone), dependent from its upper jaw. But these 

 two rows of fringed plates are very short and ineffective compared with the enormous screens with 

 which the Greenland whale is provided. The reason of this is obvious if we examine the throat of 

 the creature. For whereas the Greenland whale, because of the tiny aperture of its throat, must 

 carefully sift only the smallest of marine organisms (brit) from the surface inhabitants of the sea, 

 the rorquals, of which the Sulphur-Bottom Whale is the chief, can swallow huge masses of fish. 



