the Oecotiomy of the Ichneumon Manifejlator Linn. 27 



repeated three times ; but approaching too near, in hopes with a 

 (hallow magnifier to obferve what paiTed at the end of the tube, I 

 frightened it away. My curiofity being excited, I waited, but in 

 vain, for the return of the fly, and had it not in my power to vifit 

 the fame fpot for a week; but on the 16th of the fame month I 

 was amply gratified, luckily feeing many of them at work. They 

 appeared to pierce the folid wood with fheir tubes, which they 

 forced in even to half their length, conftantly puffing them down 

 the abdomen between the hinder thighs, which doled and kept 

 them ftraight whenever any over-refiftance forced them to bend. 

 I was fo aftonifhed to fee an inftrument apparently weak and (len- 

 der, able, with the flrength of fo fmali an animal to pierce folid 

 wood ^ or f of an inch deep, that I attended to every motion of 

 the infect, hoping to difcover in what manner it was done ; and on 

 very particular attention I obferved, that all thofe who appeared to 

 pierce the folid wood, did it through the centre of afmall white fpot 

 refembling mould or mildew, which on minute examination with a 

 magnifier I found to be fine white fand, which delicately clofed up 

 a hole made by the Apis maxillofa, and where I have no doubt the 

 bees' young were depofited. In deep holes that were not clofed, 

 the infect not only thruft in the whole tube, but in fome cafes the 

 whole of the abdomen and pofterior legs, leaving out only the two 

 fore-feet and wings, which it placed in contrary directions like two 

 arms. The grooves which indole the tube were alfo projected up 

 the back, with the ends appearing above the head out of the hole. 

 In October I law another of thefe infects on a ftrong poft, on 

 Leffnefs Heath, near Erith in Kent. It had fixed its tube before I 

 arrived, and I waited a confidcrable time, in hopes it would with- 

 draw it; but a gentleman who was with me being impatient, and 

 doubting my account of it, I with difficulty forced the infect to draw 



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