hese arguments were not
sufficient, I might add that a creature which has already been able to
spend seven months without food and which in a few days' time will
proceed to drink a highly-flavoured fluid would be guilty of a
singular inconsistency if it were to start nibbling the dry fleece of
a Bee. It therefore seems to me undeniable that the young Sitares
settle on the Anthophora's body merely to make her carry them into the
cells which she will soon be building.

But until then the future parasites must hold tight to the fleece of
their hostess, despite her rapid evolutions among the flowers, despite
her rubbing against the walls of the galleries when she enters to take
shelter and, above all, despite the brushing which she must often give
herself with her feet to dust herself and keep spick and span. Hence
no doubt the need for that curious apparatus which no standing or
moving upon ordinary surfaces could explain, as was said above, when
we were wondering what the shifting, swaying, dangerous body might be
on which the larva would have to establish itself later. This body is
a hair of a Bee who makes a thousand rapid journeys, now diving into
her narrow galleries, now forcing her way down the tight throat of a
corolla, and who never rests except to brush herself with her feet and
remove the specks of dust collected by the down which covers her.

We can now easily understand the use of the projecting crescent whose
two horns, by closing together, are able to take hold of a hair more
easily than the most delicate tweezers; we perceive the full value of
the tenacious adhesive provided by the anus to save the tiny creature,
at the least sign of danger, from an imminent fall; we realize lastly
the useful function that may be fulfilled by the elastic cirri of the
flanks and legs, which are an absolute and most embarrassing
superfluity when walking upon a smooth surface, but which, in the
present case, penetrate like so many probes into the thickness of the
Anthophora's down and serve as it were to anchor the Sitaris-larva in
position. The more we consider this arrangement, which seems modelled
by a blind caprice so long as the grub drags itself laboriously over a
smooth surface, the more do we marvel at the means, as effective as
they are varied, which are lavished upon this fragile creature to help
it to preserve its unstable equilibrium.

Before I describe what becomes of the Sitaris-grubs on leaving the
body of th