The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination . ish, and to compensate forthis loss the female lays some ^2,000 eggs. If, however, a tri-angulin is carried to the nest of a host bee it feeds on the pol-len until it is transformed into a beetle. The adventures of atriangulin are analogous to those of a grain of pollen. Waste-ful as is this method, it succeeds much better than would seempossible. A part of the Coleoptera are sarcophagous, or flesh-eaters,and a part are plant-eaters, or phytophagous, feeding on wood,sap, leaves, and other vegetable matter. The first group iscertainly older a
The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination . ish, and to compensate forthis loss the female lays some ^2,000 eggs. If, however, a tri-angulin is carried to the nest of a host bee it feeds on the pol-len until it is transformed into a beetle. The adventures of atriangulin are analogous to those of a grain of pollen. Waste-ful as is this method, it succeeds much better than would seempossible. A part of the Coleoptera are sarcophagous, or flesh-eaters,and a part are plant-eaters, or phytophagous, feeding on wood,sap, leaves, and other vegetable matter. The first group iscertainly older and more primitive than the second, whileamong plant-eating beetles those living on wood (xylophagous)are older than those feeding on foliage or flowers. Beetlesliving on pollen and nectar are the most recent in origin of all. The Sarcophagous Beetles as Flower-Visitors Carnivorous families of beetles, especially where they liveon the ground, are not likely to visit flowers. None of theterrestrial tiger-beetles or water-tigers, both of which are 18G. Fig. 91. Blue Flag. 7m versicolor THE FLOWER AND THE BEE predaceous, have ever been observed eating pollen or few species of the rove-beetles {Staphylinidce), which alsolive chiefly on the ground, are ever found on flowers, althougha few very small forms {Antliohium) devour the poflen of thered-berried elderberry. Among the ground-beetles, or CarabidoB,Lebia is the only genus which regularly visits flow^ers; thesesmall green beetles, common on the goldenrods, feed partiallyon plant-lice and insect-eggs, and it was undoubtedly thesearch for food on foliage that led to flower-visiting. Thesegreat families show how diflficult it is for flesh-feeding speciesliving on the ground to become anthophilous. The lady-bugs (Coccinellidoe) are common on foliage, search-ing for plant-lice, or Aphides, and consequently they not in-frequently pass over to flowers. Their short legs and roundforms render them exceedingly awkward and ineff
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