ply half-sheathed in the split skin of the secondary
larva.

The tertiary larva reproduces almost exactly the peculiarities of the
second; it is enclosed, in the Sitares and probably also the Zonites,
in a double vesicular envelope formed of the skin of the secondary
larva and the slough of the pseudochrysalis. In the Meloes, it is
half-enclosed in the split integuments of the pseudochrysalis, even as
these, in their turn, are half-enclosed in the skin of the secondary
larva.

From the tertiary larva onwards the metamorphoses follow their
habitual course, that is to say, this larva becomes a nymph; and this
nymph the perfect insect.

CHAPTER VI
CEROCOMAE, MYLABRES AND ZONITES

All has not been told concerning the Meloidae, those strange
parasites, some of which, the Sitares and the Oil-beetles, attach
themselves, like the tiniest of Lice, to the fleece of various Bees to
get themselves carried into the cell where they will destroy the egg
and afterwards feed upon the ration of honey. A most unexpected
discovery, made a few hundred yards from my door, has warned me once
again how dangerous it is to generalize. To take it for granted, as
the mass of data hitherto collected seemed to justify us in doing,
that all the Meloidae of our country usurp the stores of honey
accumulated by the Bees, was surely a most judicious and natural
generalization. Many have accepted it without hesitation; and I for my
part was one of them. For on what are we to base our conviction when
we imagine that we are stating a law? We think to take our stand upon
the general; and we plunge into the quicksands of error. And behold,
the law of the Meloidae has to be struck off the statutes, a fate
common to many others, as this chapter will prove.

On the 16th of July, 1883, I was digging, with my son Emile, in the
sandy heap where, a few days earlier, I had been observing the labours
and the surgery of the Mantis-killing Tachytes. My purpose was to
collect a few cocoons of this Digger-wasp. The cocoons were turning up
in abundance under my pocket-trowel, when Emile presented me with an
unknown object. Absorbed in my task of collection, I slipped the find
into my box without examining it further than with a rapid glance. We
left the spot. Half-way home, the ardour of my search became assuaged;
and a thought of the problematical object, so negligently dropped into
the box among the cocoons, flashed across my mind.

"Hullo!" I said to my