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Beetles 
tact with the surrounding honey is death to the little creature, which is 
entirely unfitted for living thereon. After this the triungulin undergoes 
a moult and appears as a very different creature, being now a sort of 
vesicle wdth the spiracles placed near the upper part; so that it is admirably 
fitted for floating on the honey. In about forty days, that is, towards the 
middle of July, the honey is consumed, and the vesicular larva after a few 
days of repose changes to a pseudo-pupa within the larval skin. After 
remaining in this state for about a month some of the specimens go through 
the subsequent changes, and appear as perfect insects in August or Septem¬ 
ber. The majority delay this subsequent metamorphosis till the following 
spring, wintering as pseudo-pupae and continuing the series of changes in 
June of the following year; at that time the pseudo-pupa returns to a larval 
form, differing comparatively little from the second stage. The skin, 
though detached, is again not. shed, so that this ultimate larva is enclosed 
in two dead skins; in this curious envelope it turns round, and in a couple 
of days, having thus reversed its position, becomes lethargic and changes 
to the true pupa, and in about a month subsequent to this appears as a 
perfect insect, at about the same time of the year as it would have done 
had only one year, instead of two, been occupied by its metamorphosis. 
M. Fabre employs the term third larva for the stage designated by Riley 
Scolytoid larva, but this is clearly an inconvenient mode of naming the stage. 
. . . Meloe is also dependent on Anthophora, and its life-history seems 
on the whole to be similar to that of Sitaris; the eggs are, however, not 
necessarily deposited in the neighborhood of the bees’ nests, and the 
triungulins distribute themselves on all sorts of unsuitable insects, so that 
it is possible that not more than one in a thousand succeeds in getting access 
to the Anthophora nest. It would be supposed that it would be a much 
better course for these bee-frequenting triungulins to act like those of Epicauta, 
and hunt for the prey they are to live on; but it must be remembered that 
they cannot live on honey; the one tiny egg is their object, and this appar¬ 
ently can only be reached by the method indicated by Fabre. The history 
of these insects certainly forms a most remarkably instructive chapter in 
the department of animal instinct, and it is a matter for surprise that it 
should not yet have attracted the attention of comparative psychologists. 
The series of actions to be performed once, and once only, in a lifetime by 
an uninstructed, inexperienced atom is such that we should, a priori , have 
denounced it as an impossible means of existence, were it not shown that 
it is constantly successful. It is no wonder that the female Meloe produces 
five thousand times more eggs than are necessary to continue the species 
without diminution in the number of its individuals, for the first and most 
important act in the complex series of this life-history is accomplished by 
an extremely indiscriminating instinct; the newly hatched Meloe lias to 
