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This constant traffic of the males in the entrance-lobbies of their houses and the prolonged stay which the bad weather often compels them to make provide the Sitares with the most favourable opportunity for slipping into the Bees' fur and taking up their position.
The larger of the two larvæ of the 25th of June, placed in a test-tube with what remained of its provisions, assumed a new form during the first week of the following month. Its skin split along the front dorsal half and, after being pushed half back, left partly uncovered a pseudochrysalis bearing the closest analogy with that of the Sitares.
The Sitares, placed at the entrance to a cell, far from seeking to make their way in, leave it and go roaming about the glass tube; those which have been placed on the inner surface of the cells, near the honey, emerge precipitately, half-caught in the glue and tripping at every step; lastly, those which I thought I had favoured the most, by placing them on the honey itself, struggle, become entangled in the sticky mass and perish in it, suffocated.
On my return from Carpentras, I meant to try this method, together with that of the Sitares, with which I had been so successful; but, as I had no Meloe-larvæ at my disposal and could not obtain any save by searching for them in the Bees' fleece, the Anthophora-eggs were all discovered to have hatched in the cells which I brought back from my expedition, when I was at last able to find some.
It is impossible to decide by experiment to which of these two periods we must ascribe the introduction of the Sitares into the cell; for, however peaceable the Anthophora may be, it is evident that we cannot hope to witness what happens in the cell at the moment when she is laying an egg or at the moment when she is making the lid.
Lastly, through the fissure, which divides it almost in two, a Meloe-nymph half-emerges; so that, to all appearances, the pseudochrysalis has been followed immediately by the nymph, which does not happen with the Sitares, which pass from the first of these two states to the second only by assuming an intermediary form closely resembling that of the larva which eats the store of honey.
In vain I racked my brains to guess what the substance might be, so shifting, so uncertain and so perilous, which the young Sitares are destined to inhabit; and I discovered nothing to explain the necessity for the structure which I have described.
The last pair is rather smaller than the rest, a peculiarity which we have already noted in the larva which precedes the pseudochrysalis. On comparing the pseudochrysalids of the Oil-beetles and Sitares, we observe a most striking similarity between the two. The same structure occurs in both, down to the smallest details.
My observations made during the spring of 1856, although purely negative, nevertheless have an interest of their own, because they prove the inaccuracy of certain suppositions to which the undeniable parasitism of the Sitares naturally inclines us. I will therefore relate them in a few words.
The Sitares, the Meloes, the Zonites and apparently other Meloidæ, possibly all of them, are in their earliest infancy parasites of the harvesting Bees. The larva of the Meloidæ, before reaching the nymphal state, passes through four forms, which I call the primary larva, the secondary larva, the pseudochrysalis and the tertiary larva.
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