s back. From what I have
said of the Sitaris-larvae, it is plain that the Meloe-larvae perched,
like the former, on the back of a Bee, have but one aim: to get
themselves conveyed by this Bee to the victualled cells. Their object
is not to live for a time on the body that carries them.

Were it necessary to prove this, it would be enough to say that we
never see these larvae attempt to pierce the skin of the Bee, or else
to nibble at a hair or two, nor do we see them increase in size so
long as they are on the Bee's body. To the Meloes, as to the Sitares,
the Anthophora serves merely as a vehicle which conveys them to their
goal, the victualled cell.

It remains for us to learn how the Meloe leaves the down of the Bee
which has carried it, in order to enter the cell. With larvae
collected from the bodies of different Bees, before I was fully
acquainted with the tactics of the Sitares, I undertook, as Newport
had done before me, certain investigations intended to throw light on
this leading point in the Oil-beetle's history. My attempts, based
upon those which I had made with the Sitares, resulted in the same
failure. The tiny creatures, when brought into contact with
Anthophora-larvae or -nymphs, paid no attention whatever to their
prey; others, placed near cells which were open and full of honey, did
not enter them, or at most ventured to the edge of the orifice;
others, lastly, put inside the cell, on the dry wall or on the surface
of the honey, came out again immediately or else got stuck and died.
The touch of the honey is as fatal to them as to the young Sitares.

Searches made at various periods in the nests of the Hairy-footed
Anthophora had taught me some years earlier that _Meloe cicatricosus_,
like the Sitares, is a parasite of that Bee; indeed I had at different
times discovered adult Meloes, dead and shrivelled, in the Bee's
cells. On the other hand, I knew from Leon Dufour that the little
yellow animal, the Louse found in the Bee's down, had been recognized,
thanks to Newport's investigations, as the larva of the Oil-beetle.
With these data, rendered still more striking by what I was learning
daily on the subject of the Sitares, I went to Carpentras, on the 21st
of May, to inspect the nests of the Anthophorae, then building, as I
have described. Though I was almost certain of succeeding, sooner or
later, with the Sitares, who were excessively abundant, I had very
little hope of the Meloes, which on the c