Let us also record the description of the strange larva found devouring the heap of Mantes in the burrows of the Tachytes. It is naked, blind, white, soft and sharply curved. Its general appearance suggests the larva of some Weevil. I should be even more accurate if I compared it with the secondary larva of _Meloe cicatricosus_, of which I once published a drawing in the _Annales des sciences naturelles_.[3] If we reduce the dimensions considerably, we shall have something very like the parasite of the Tachytes. [Footnote 3: It was his essays in this periodical, on the metamorphoses of the Sitares and Oil-beetles, that procured Fabre his first reputation as an entomologist.--_Translator's Note_.] The head is large, faintly tinged with red. The mandibles are strong, bent into a pointed hook, black at the tip and a fiery red at the base. The antennae are very short, inserted close to the root of the mandibles. I count three joints: the first thick and globular, the other two cylindrical, the second of these cut short abruptly. There are twelve segments, apart from the head, divided by fairly definite grooves. The first thoracic segment is a little longer than the rest, with the dorsal plate very slightly tinged with russet, as is the top of the head. Beginning with the tenth segment, the body tapers a little. A slight scalloped rim divides the dorsal from the ventral surface. The legs are short, white and transparent and end in a feeble claw. A pair of stigmata on the mesothorax, near the line of junction with the prothorax; a stigma on either side of the first eight abdominal segments; in all nine pairs of stigmata, distributed like those of the pseudochrysalis. These stigmata are small, tinged with red and rather difficult to distinguish. Varying in size, like the pseudochrysalid which seems to come from it, this larva averages nearly half an inch in length and an eighth of an inch in width. The six little legs, feeble though they be, perform services which one would not at first suspect. They embrace the Mantis that is being devoured and hold her under the mandibles, while the grub, lying on its side, takes its meal at its ease. They also serve for locomotion. On a firm surface, such as the wooden top of my table, the larva can move about quite well; it toddles along, dragging its belly, with its body straight from end to end. On fine, loose sand, change of position becomes difficult. The grub now bends itself into a bow; it wriggles upon its back, upon its side; it crawls a little way; it digs and heaves with its mandibles. But let a less crumbling support come to its assistance; and pilgrimages of some length are not beyond its powers.