and hide. As becomes a carnivorous creature whose prey must be industriously sought, they display great powers of endurance, and will survive for a fortnight without food in a moderate temperature. Yet in the search for locust eggs many are, without doubt, doomed to perish, and only the more fortunate succeed in finding appropriate diet.
Reaching a locust egg-pod, our triungulin, by chance, or instinct, or both combined, commences to burrow through the mucous neck, or covering, and makes its first repast thereon. If it bas been long in search, and its jaws are well hardened, it makes quick work through this porous and cellular matter, and at once gnaws away at an egg, first devouring a portion of the shell, and then, in the course of two or three days, sucking up the contents. Should two or more triungulins enter the same egg-pod, a deadly conflict sooner or later ensues until one alone remains the victorious possessor.
The surviving triungulin then attacks a second egg and more or less completely exhausts its contents, when, after about eight days from the time of its hatching, it ceases
Fig. 13. The second-stage larva of the striped blister beetle.
(Frorn Riley)
