e of my tweezers which I hold out to them: they accept
anything in their eagerness to quit the provisional shelter of the
flower. It is true that, after finding themselves on these inanimate
objects, they soon recognize that they have gone astray, as we see by
their bustling movements to and fro and their tendency to go back to
the flower if there still be time. Those which have thus giddily flung
themselves upon a bit of straw and are allowed to return to their
flower do not readily fall a second time into the same trap. There is
therefore, in these animated specks, a memory, an experience of
things.

After these experiments I tried others with hairy materials imitating
more or less closely the down of the Bees, with little pieces of cloth
or velvet cut from my clothes, with plugs of cotton wool, with pellets
of flock gathered from the everlastings. Upon all these objects,
offered with the tweezers, the Meloes flung themselves without any
difficulty; but, instead of keeping quiet, as they do on the bodies of
the Bees, they soon convinced me, by their restless behaviour, that
they found themselves as much out of their element on these furry
materials as on the smooth surface of a bit of straw. I ought to have
expected this: had I not just seen them wandering without pause upon
the everlastings enveloped with cottony flock? If reaching the shelter
of a downy surface were enough to make them believe themselves safe in
harbour, nearly all would perish, without further attempts, in the
down of the plants.

Let us now offer them live insects and, first of all, Anthophorae. If
the Bee, after we have rid her of the parasites which she may be
carrying, be taken by the wings and held for a moment in contact with
the flower, we invariably find her, after this rapid contact, overrun
by Meloes clinging to her hairs. The larvae nimbly take up their
position on the thorax, usually on the shoulders or sides, and once
there they remain motionless: the second stage of their strange
journey is compassed.

After the Anthophorae, I tried the first live insects that I was able
to procure at once: Drone-flies, Bluebottles, Hive-bees, small
Butterflies. All were alike overrun by the Meloes, without hesitation.
What is more, there was no attempt made to return to the flowers. As I
could not find any Beetles at the moment, I was unable to experiment
with them. Newport, experimenting, it is true, under conditions very
different from mine, si