As a standard of comparison, the Four-spotted Mylabris, of a more imposing size, was added to the first two. A fourth, _Zonitis mutica_, whom I did not need to consult, knowing that she was not connected with the matter in hand and being familiar with her pseudochrysalis, completed my school of egg-layers. I proposed, if possible, to obtain her primary larva. Lastly, I had formerly reared some Cantharides with the object of observing their egg-laying. In all, five species of Blister-beetles, reared in a breeding-cage, have left a few lines of notes in my records. The method of rearing is of the simplest. Each species is placed under a large wire-gauze dome standing in a basin filled with earth. In the middle of the enclosure is a bottle full of water, in which the food soaks and keeps fresh. For the Cantharides, this is a bundle of ash-twigs; for the Four-spotted Mylabris, a bunch of bindweed (_Convolvus arvensis_) or psoralea (_P. biluminosa_), of which the insect nibbles only the corollae. For the Twelve-spotted Mylabris, I provide blossoms of the scabious (_Scabiosa maritima_); for the Zonitis, the full-blown heads of the eryngo (_Eryngium campestre_); for Schaeffer's Cerocoma, the heads of the Iles d'Hyeres everlasting (_Helichrysum stoechas_). These three last nibble more particularly the anthers, more rarely the petals, never the leaves. A sorry intellect and sorry manners, which hardly repay the minute cares involved in the rearing. To browse, to love her lord, to dig a hole in the earth and carelessly to bury her eggs in it: that is the whole life of the adult Meloid. The dull creature acquires a little interest only at the moment when the male begins to toy with his mate. Every species has its own ritual in declaring its passion; and it is not beneath the dignity of the observer to witness the manifestations, sometimes so very strange, of the universal Eros, who rules the world and brings a tremor to even the lowest of the brute creation. This is the ultimate aim of the insect, which becomes transfigured for this solemn function and then dies, having no more to do. A curious book might be written on the subject of love among the beasts. Long ago the subject tempted me. For a quarter of a century my notes have been slumbering, dustily, in a corner of my library. I extract from them the following details concerning the Cantharides. I am not the first, I know, to describe the amorous preludes of the Meloid of the Ash-tree; but the change of narrator may give the narrative a certain value: it confirms what has already been said and throws light upon some points which may have escaped notice.