324 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



chimpanzee, but the bee and above all the ant, which approach 

 nearest to man." 



The Hymenoptera are also among the most useful and bene 

 ficial insects to man, since it is mostly only among the phytopha 

 gous species, or the saw-flies, horntails, etc., that we find those 

 that are injurious ; the vast majority of the species known to us 

 being beneficial in various ways. 



The hive-bee and other wild bees furnish us with wax and 

 honey ; while other bees are useful in the pollenization of plants 

 and fruit trees, the legs of these insects, with their hairy covering, 

 being specially adapted for carrying pollen from one flower to 

 another. In fact, modern research has shown that many plants 

 cannot be pollenized without the bees, and if it were not for 

 these useful insects our orchards would be unproductive, since 

 they are essential to the pollenization of the apple, the pear, the 

 peach, and other fruit trees. It has also been shown that the 

 bumble-bee is essential to the fertilization of reel clover and other 

 plants. 



The oak-gall of commerce, the product of a cynipid, or gall- 

 making wasp, has been for years utilized in the manufacture of 

 ink, and, although to-day somewhat superseded by chemical 

 products, is still much used in the manufacture of this important 

 article of modern civilization. 



The fig insects, the Agaonidae or Blastophagae, a most re 

 markable group of hymenopterous insects, belonging to the 

 family Chalcididas, are also important to man, since from time 

 immemorial they have been made use of in the fertilization of 

 the fig. 



They are still made use of in the Orient, although it has been 

 demonstrated that some varieties of figs the artificial product of 

 man through centuries of cultivation will produce fruit without 

 their intervention. All wild fig trees, however, are dircceous 

 and it has been fully demonstrated that each species of fig tree 

 has one or. more species of these insects attached to it, which are 

 essential to its fertilization. 



All wasps the wood-wasps, the digger-wasps, the social 

 wasps, etc. are also beneficial, and very few persons, outside 

 of entomologists, can conceive of the immense services performed 



