that which preceded the pseudochrysalis. In the latter
case only, the mandibles and the legs are not so robust. Thus, after
passing through the pseudochrysalid stage, the Oil-beetles for some
time resume the preceding form, almost without modification.

The nymph comes next. It presents no peculiarities. The only nymph
that I have reared attained the perfect insect state at the end of
September. Under ordinary conditions would the adult Oil-beetle have
emerged from her cell at this period? I do not think so, since the
pairing and egg-laying do not take place until the beginning of
spring. She would no doubt have spent the autumn and the winter in the
Anthophora's dwelling, only leaving it in the spring following. It is
even probable that, as a rule, the development is even slower and that
the Oil-beetles, like the Sitares, for the most part spend the cold
season in the pseudochrysalid state, a state well-adapted to the
winter torpor, and do not achieve their numerous forms until the
return of the warm weather.

The Sitares and Meloes belong to the same family, that of the
Meloidae.[2] Their strange transformations must probably extend
throughout the group; indeed, I had the good fortune to discover a
third example, which I have not hitherto been able to study in all its
details after twenty-five years of investigation. On six occasions, no
oftener, during this long period I have set eyes on the
pseudochrysalis which I am about to describe. Thrice I obtained it
from old Chalicodoma-nests built upon a stone, nests which I at first
attributed to the Chalicodoma of the Walls and which I now refer with
greater probability to the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I once extracted
it from the galleries bored by some wood-eating larva in the trunk of
a dead wild pear-tree, galleries afterwards utilized for the cells of
an Osmia, I do not know which. Lastly, I found a pair of them in
between the row of cocoons of the Three-pronged Osmia (_O.
tridentata_, DUF.), who provides a home for her larvae in a channel
dug in the dry bramble stems. The insect in question therefore is a
parasite of the Osmiae. When I extract it from the old
Chalicodoma-nests, I have to attribute it not to this Bee but to one
of the Osmiae (_O. tricornis_ and _O. Latreillii_) who, when making
their nests, utilize the old galleries of the Mason-bee.

[Footnote 2: Later classifiers place both in the family of the
Cantharidae.--_Translator's Note_.]

The most nea