abdomen has nine segments, all of an olive brown. The membranous
spaces which connect them are white, so that, from the second thoracic
ring downwards, the tiny creature is alternatively ringed with white
and olive brown. All the brown rings bristle with short, sparse hairs.
The anal segment, which is narrower than the rest, bears at the tip
two long cirri, very fine, slightly waved and almost as long as the
whole abdomen.

This description enables us to picture a sturdy little creature,
capable of biting lustily with its mandibles, exploring the country
with its big eyes and moving about with six strong harpoons as a
support. We no longer have to do with the puny louse of the
Oil-beetle, which lies in ambush on a cichoriaceous blossom in order
to slip into the fleece of a harvesting Bee; nor with the black atom
of the Sitaris, which swarms in a heap on the spot where it is
hatched, at the Anthophora's door. I see the young Mylabris striding
eagerly up and down the glass tube in which it was born.

What is it seeking? What does it want? I give it a Bee, a Halictus,[9]
to see if it will settle on the insect, as the Sitares and Oil-beetles
would not fail to do. My offer is scorned. It is not a winged
conveyance that my prisoners require.

[Footnote 9: Cf. _Bramble-bees and Others_: chaps. xii. to
xiv.--_Translator's Note_.]

The primary larva of the Mylabris therefore does not imitate those of
the Sitaris and the Oil-beetle; it does not settle in the fleece of
its host to get itself carried to the cell crammed with victuals. The
task of seeking and finding the heap of food falls upon its own
shoulders. The small number of the eggs that constitute a batch also
leads to the same conclusion. Remember that the primary larva of the
Oil-beetle, for instance, settles on any insect that happens to pay a
momentary visit to the flower in which the tiny creature is on the
look-out. Whether this visitor be hairy or smooth-skinned, a
manufacturer of honey, a canner of animal flesh or without any
determined calling, whether she be Spider, Butterfly, Fly or Beetle
makes no difference: the instant the little yellow louse espies the
new arrival, it perches on her back and leaves with her. And now it
all depends on luck! How many of these stray travellers must be lost;
how many will never be carried into a warehouse full of honey, their
sole food! Therefore, to remedy this enormous waste, the mother
produces an innumerable family. Th