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This larva is removed; and taking a thousand precautions, I lay one or more Sitares on the surface of the honey. In other cells I leave the Bee's larva and insert Sitares, placing them sometimes on the honey and sometimes on the inner wall of the cell or simply at the entrance.
This lost experiment is little to be regretted, for, since the Meloes and the Sitares exhibiting the completest similarity not only in habits but also in their method of evolution, there is no doubt whatever that I should have succeeded.
We must obviously employ honey prepared by the same species of Anthophora as that at whose cost the Sitares live. But this Bee is not very common in the neighbourhood of Avignon; and my engagements at the college do not allow me to absent myself for the purpose of repairing to Carpentras, where she is so abundant.
It remains for us to learn how the Meloe leaves the down of the Bee which has carried it, in order to enter the cell. With larvæ collected from the bodies of different Bees, before I was fully acquainted with the tactics of the Sitares, I undertook, as Newport had done before me, certain investigations intended to throw light on this leading point in the Oil-beetle's history.
The passage through the pseudochrysalid state has led to no change that is really worth describing. The creature, after this singular phase, is what it was before. The Meloes and Sitares, for that matter, behave similarly. Then what can be the meaning of this pseudochrysalid stage, which, when passed, leads precisely to the point of departure?
In the Sitares, in fact, this cast skin constitutes a closed bag, a pouch completely enveloping the pseudochrysalis; in the Oil-beetles, on the contrary, it is split down the back and pushed to the rear and, consequently, only half-covers the pseudochrysalis.
I even slip the Sitares into the cells: I place them on the sides of the larva, a succulent morsel to all appearances; I do all sorts of things to tempt their appetite; and, after exhausting my ingenuity, which continues fruitless, I remain convinced that my famished grubs are seeking neither the larvæ nor nymphs of the Anthophora. Let us now try honey.
It is even probable that, as a rule, the development is even slower and that the Oil-beetles, like the Sitares, for the most part spend the cold season in the pseudochrysalid state, a state well-adapted to the winter torpor, and do not achieve their numerous forms until the return of the warm weather. The Sitares and Meloes belong to the same family, that of the Meloidæ.
The adipose tissue is more abundant than ever: it forms by itself the whole contents of the pseudochrysalis, for in the matter of volume the insignificant threads of the nervous system and the digestive apparatus count for nothing. It is the reserve upon which life must draw for its future labours. A few Sitares remain hardly a month in the pseudochrysalis stage.
Now these contents are limited to honey or larvæ. It just happens that I have kept some Anthophora-cells occupied by larvæ or nymphs. I place a few of these, some open, some closed, within reach of the young Sitares, as I had already done directly after the hatching.
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