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Updated: June 3, 2025
Thus protected by the prudent industry of their mother, well out of reach in their distant, solid retreats, the Anthophora's larvæ are devoid of the glandular apparatus designed for secreting silk. They therefore never spin a cocoon, but lie naked in their cells, whose inner surface has the polish of stucco.
But the layer of Osmia-cells has been removed; and the pick now reaches the Anthophora's cells. Among these cells are some which contain larvæ and which result from the labours of last May; others, though of the same date, are already occupied by the perfect insect.
But in what, if you please, does Parnopes carnea resemble the Bembex into whose home she penetrates in her presence? In what does the Melecta resemble the Anthophora, who stands aside on her threshold to let her pass? The difference of costume is most striking. The Melecta's deep mourning has naught in common with the Anthophora's russet coat.
They sit down to a table that was not laid for them; they eat side by side with the lawful owner; and this in such haste that he dies of starvation, though he is respected by the teeth of the interlopers who have gorged themselves on his portion. When the Melecta has substituted her egg for the Anthophora's, here again we see a real parasite settling in the usurped cell.
I collected, under far less favourable conditions, it is true, enough notes to map out the biography of the tiny creature which we have just seen migrating from the camomile-flowers to the Anthophora's back.
With such a multitude of parasites occupying the composite flowers in close proximity to the Anthophora's nests, it is impossible that the majority of the swarm should not become infested sooner or later.
I have examined some forty of the superb cells utilized by each of the first two. The great majority are divided into two storeys by means of a transversal partition. The lower storey includes the larger portion of the Anthophora's cell; the upper storey includes the rest of the cell and a little of the bottle-neck that surmounts it.
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