The appearance of the young Sitaris showed me at once that its habits must be peculiar. It could not, I saw, be called on to move on an ordinary surface. The spot where this larva has to live evidently exposes it to the risk of many dangerous falls, since, in order to prevent them, it is equipped with a pair of powerful mandibles, curved and sharp; robust legs which end in a long and very mobile claw; a variety of bristles and probes; and a couple of strong spikes with sharp, hard points—an elaborate mechanism, like a sort of ploughshare, capable of biting into the most highly polished surface. Nor is this all. It is further provided with a sticky liquid, sufficiently adhesive to hold it in position without the help of other appliances. In vain I racked my brains to guess what the substance might be, so shifting, so uncertain, and so perilous, which the young Sitaris is destined to inhabit. I waited with eager impatience for the return of the warm weather. At the end of April the young grubs imprisoned in my cages, hitherto lying motionless and hidden in the spongy heap of egg-skins, suddenly began to move. They scattered, and ran about in all directions through the boxes and jars in which they have passed the winter. Their hurried movements and untiring energy showed they were in search of something, and the natural thing for them to seek was food. For these grubs were hatched at the end of September, and since then, that is to say for seven long months, they had taken no nourishment, although they were by no means in a state of torpor. From the moment of their hatching they are doomed, though full of life, to an absolute fast lasting for seven months; and when I saw their excitement I naturally supposed that an imperious hunger had set them bustling in that fashion. The food they desired could only be the contents of the Anthophora’s cells, since at a later stage the Sitaris is found in those cells. Now these contents are limited to honey and Bee-grubs. I offered them some cells containing larvæ: I even slipped the Sitares into the cells, and did all sorts of things to tempt their appetite. My efforts were fruitless. Then I tried honey. In hunting for cells provisioned with honey I lost a good part of the month of May. Having found them I removed the Bee-grub from some of them, and laid the Sitaris-grub on the surface of the honey. Never did experiment break down so completely! Far from eating the honey, the grubs became entangled in the sticky mass and perished in it, suffocated. “I have offered you larvæ, cells, honey!” I cried in despair. “Then what do you want, you fiendish little creatures?” Well, in the end I found out what they wanted. They wanted the Anthophora herself to carry them into the cells!