3°8 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
themselves to the hairs of the bees, which carried them to their 
nests. There the larvae underwent their transformations. They 
nourished themselves with the honey cake of the bee, and when 
they were full grown they formed for themselves a kind of cell 
or covering, in which they remained perfectly inactive for some 
time. They did not become transformed into nymphs at once, 
but remained as larvae in this quiet condition. Considering how 
many accidents might happen to the larva of one of these beetles 
before it can reach the position which appears to be necessary 
for its development, it is really wonderful that any one should 
come to the adult condition. But Nature compensates by giving 
the females an enormous number of eggs, and Newport counted 
4,218 in one of them. The meloe beetles lay their eggs just below 
the surface of the ground, and when the little larvae are hatched 
they climb upon the plants in their neighbourhood, and should 
any insects with wings alight near them they do their best to 
hook themselves on. They do not appear to select bees in 
particular, although they alone can afford the growing larvae 
their nourishment, but choose the first fly that comes, and thus 
vast numbers are carried about which soon die from starvation. 
“According to M. Fabre — the only naturalist who has yet ob- 
served these changes in Sitaris — its life-history has eleven events : 
— 1. The egg is laid in the galleries of the Anthophora. 2. A 
little larva is hatched with six serviceable legs, which remains in 
its birthplace without food or change of size from October .to April. 
3. In April it becomes active, and attaches itself to the males of 
Anthophora when they emerge from their cells, which they do 
before the females. 4. From the male it passes to the female 
Anthophora. 5. From the female it passes to its egg, on which 
it springs as the female lays it on the surface of the honey on 
which it was to feed, where it sits as on a raft. 6. It then eats up 
the egg, which takes it eight days. 7. Seated on the empty shell, 
floating on the honey, it now undergoes a metamorphosis from its 
previous slim, active, carnivorous form, to a white fleshy grub 
which is no longer carnivorous, but feeds on honey, and is so 
organised as to float on the surface of the honey, mouth below, 
spiracles above. 8. After the honey in the cell is done, it changes 
its skin, and passes into something under a corneous envelope, like 
