246 



Agricultural Statistics. 



[JULY, 



to continue the average number of the species), but this great 

 fertility is necessary to make up the risks in the life history 

 due to defective instinct. The life history of this insect is as 

 follows: — From the egg of the beetle there comes a tin)- larva. 

 These larvae in hundreds seek flowers that are visited by bees 

 of different species. Having reached a flower they remain 

 until a bee visits, when immediately the insect may be covered 

 by hundreds of the larvae, which cling to hairs, &c. The wild 

 bee going to its nest may proceed to egg-laying. As the egg is 

 being laid on the honey in the cell the meloe larva drops upon 

 it (should it reach or fall on the honey it dies) and passes its 

 first stage, devouring the contents of the bee's egg. Having 

 devoured the egg the larva changes to its next stage, its new 

 structure fitting it for a honey diet ; and when it has attained 

 its growth at the expense of the honey the grub passes into 

 what is known as a pseudo-pupal stage, and later its adult 

 condition is attained. The reason, then, for the enormous egg- 

 laying (in some species 10,000 eggs) is that the risk is great* 

 that the right host (the special species of bee) may not be 

 reached, and thousands of the meloe larvae never reach the 

 bee's egg on which alone they can develop, but are carried away 

 clinging to insects not only of the same order as bees, but of 

 widely different orders, and all useless for the completion of 

 the meloe development. 



The complete agricultural statistics for 1903 published by 

 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries brings together the 

 information collected in the agricultural 

 Agricultural returns already separately issued, and 

 furnishes particulars of the imports and 

 exports of agricultural produce, the prices of corn, of live stock 

 and other commodities, together with the latest statistics 

 relating to the agriculture of British possessions and foreign 

 countries. 



New features in the scope of the statistics now presented will 

 be found in the ampler records of the meteorological conditions 

 of the year, and in the tables which classify the agricultural 



