arly 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 Anthophorae;
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 Linnaeus;[1] the
Triungulin of the Andrenae (_Triungulinus andrenetarum_) of Leon
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 lacunae 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.

[Footnote 1: Carolus Linnaeus (Karl von Linne, 1707-1778), the
celebrated Swedish botanist and naturalist, founder of the Linnaean
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 larvae 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_.

Despite the presence of _Meloe