216 Transformations and Habits of Blister-Beetles. (April, 
the cells of Anthophora retusa. He failed, however, to fill the gap 
between the first and full-grown larva; and this Fabre first infer- 
entially did in 1858 (Azz. d. Sc. Nat., Zodl. t. ix, p. 265) by 
tracing the analogous stages of Sitaris. 3 
The female Meloë is very prolific. She lays at three or four 
different intervals, in loose irregular masses in the ground, and 
may produce from three to four thousand eggs. These are soft, 
whitish, cylindrical, and rounded at each end. They give birth 
to the triungulins, which, a few days after hatching—the number 
depending on the temperature—run actively about and climb on- 
to Composite, Ranunculaceous and other flowers, from which 
they attach themselves to bees and flies that visit the flowers. 
Fastening alike to many hairy Diptera and to Hymenoptera which — 
can be of little or no service to them, many are doomed to perish, 
and only the few fortunate ones are carried to the proper cells of 
some Anthephora. Once in the cell, the triungulin falls upon 
the bee egg, which it soon exhausts. A molt then takes place 
and the second larva is produced. Clumsy and with locomotive 
power reduced to a minimum, this second larva devours the 
thickened honey stored up for the bee larva. It then changes to 
the pseudo-pupa with the skin of the second larva only partially 
shed; then to a third larva within the partially rent pseudo-pupal 
: skin, and finally to the true pupa and imago. These different 
-changes of form are known by the name of hypermetamorphoses, : 
the term first given them by Fabre to distinguish them from the 
normal changes from larva to pupa and imago, experienced by- 
insects i gee | The triungulin or first larva (Fig. 1, 4) iS 
characterized by 4 
prominent labrum, 
: very stout hee : 
M unarmed shan 
three broad and E ; 
spatulate tar 
claws, feeble and re- 
” 
Fig. 1.—Melod; d, first larva; å, claws; ¢, antenna = 
Seas .— ee fs WwW > 
- maxillary palpus ; > labial palpus; f mandible; g; & £ setz, the two ‘inne! 
abdominal ari h, me es i, antenna of 4. ones ent Wheat 
