In summing up the above, we see that the strange little creature awaits, without food, for seven months, the appearance of the Anthophoræ and at last fastens on to the hairs on the corselet of the males, who are the first to emerge and who inevitably pass within its reach in going through their corridors. From the fleece of the male the larva moves, three or four weeks later, to that of the female, at the moment of coupling; and then from the female to the egg leaving the oviduct. It is by this concatenation of complex manoeuvres that the larva in the end finds itself perched upon an egg in the middle of a closed cell filled with honey. These perilous gymnastics on the hair of a Bee in movement all the day, this passing from one sex to the other, this arrival in the middle of the cell by way of the egg, a dangerous bridge thrown across the sticky abyss, all this necessitates the balancing-appliances with which it is provided and which I have described above. Lastly, the destruction of the egg calls, in its turn, for a sharp pair of scissors; and such is the object of the keen, curved mandibles. Thus the primary form of the Sitares has as its function to get itself carried by the Anthophora into the cell and to rip up her egg. This done, the organism becomes transformed to such a degree that repeated observations are required to make us believe the evidence of our eyes.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRIMARY LARVA OF THE OIL-BEETLES
I interrupt the history of the Sitares to speak of the Meloes, those uncouth Beetles, with their clumsy belly and their limp wing-cases yawning over their back like the tails of a fat man's coat that is far too tight for its wearer. The insect is ugly in colouring, which is black, with an occasional blue gleam, and uglier still in shape and gait; and its disgusting method of defence increases the repugnance with which it inspires us. If it judges itself to be in danger, the Meloe resorts to spontaneous bleeding. From its joints a yellowish, oily fluid oozes, which stains your fingers and makes them stink. This is the creature's blood. The English, because of its trick of discharging oily blood when on the defensive, call this insect the Oil-beetle. It would not be a particularly interesting Beetle save for its metamorphoses and the peregrinations of its larva, which are similar in every respect to those of the larva of the Sitares. In their first form, the Oil-beetles are parasites of the Anthophoræ; their tiny grub, when it leaves the egg, has itself carried into the cell by the Bee whose victuals are to form its food.
Observed in the down of various Bees, the queer little creature for a long time baffled the sagacity of the naturalists, who, mistaking its true origin, made it a species of a special family of wingless insects. It was the Bee-louse (Pediculus apis) of Linnæus;1 the Triungulin of the Andrenæ (Triungulinus andrenetarum) of Léon Dufour. They saw in it a parasite, a sort of Louse, living in the fleece of the honey-gatherers. It was reserved for the distinguished English naturalist Newport to show that this supposed Louse was the first state of the Oil-beetles. Some observations of my own will fill a few lacunæ in the English scientist's monograph. I will therefore sketch the evolution of the Oil-beetles, using Newport's work where my own observations are defective. In this way the Sitares and the Meloes, alike in habits and transformations, will be compared; and the comparison will throw a certain light upon the strange metamorphoses of these insects.
1 Carolus Linnæus (Karl von Linné, 1707-1778), the celebrated Swedish botanist and naturalist, founder of the Linnæan system of classification.—Translator's Note.
The same Mason-bee (Anthophora pilipes) upon whom the Sitares live also feeds a few scarce Meloes (M. cicatricosus) in its cells. A second Anthophora of my district (A. parietina) is more subject to this parasite's invasions. It was also in the nests of an Anthophora, but of a different species (A. retusa), that Newport observed the same Oil-beetle. These three lodgings adopted by Meloe cicatricosus may be of some slight interest, as leading us to suspect that each species of Meloe is apparently the parasite of diverse Bees, a suspicion which will be confirmed when we examine the manner in which the larvæ reach the cell full of honey. The Sitares, though less given to change of lodging, are likewise able to inhabit nests of different species. They are very common in the cells of Anthophora pilipes; but I have found them also, in very small numbers, it is true, in the cells of A. personata.