470 INSECTS ABROAD. 



stock tliem with insects as food for the future young. They 

 seem to prefer grasshoppers, or at all events Orthoptera, to any 

 other insects, though they sometimes take caterpillars, if they 

 can get nothing better. The British species, Tachytes pompili- 

 formis, almost invariably stocks its nest with grasshoppers, 

 having previously deprived them of life, or at all events of 

 motion, by the sting. Yet, Mr. Shuckard has seen the insect 

 engaged in the capture of green caterpillars, possibly because it 

 could find no grasshoppers. 



On Plate VIIT., Fig. 2 is shown an insect that is rather 

 insignificant in appearance, though it is very interesting in its 

 habits. Its name is Parapison rufi.pes, and it is one of a number 

 of insects that were brought from India by Mr. 0. Home, and 

 described by Mr. F. Smith. Its colour is very simple, being 

 nearly brown, with a sprinkling of silvery down. Attached to 

 the flower-stem in the lower corner of the plate is seen a group 

 of its curious cells, the construction of which is thus described 

 by Mr. Home : — 



" It constructs a wall of loosely-arranged cells of earth 

 attached to some hanging object, such as a creeper, tendril, or 

 pendent straw, or even a curled dry leaf. The interior of the 

 cell is strengthened by a very fine glutinous silky-looking sub- 

 stance, and this is the more necessary as the least damp would 

 otherwise destroy the whole fabric. 



"I believe the insect to apply some kind of gluten, while the 

 pupa secures its safety by spinning a very slight silken web 

 within its abode. The cells are very globular, and are filled 

 with the smallest spiders, of which I counted eighteen in two 

 chambers. These are generally of a pale green colour, and their 

 plumpness is curious. Sometimes, however, it builds a wall 

 with more or less regularity. The pellets used in construction 

 are, comparatively with the size of the insect, very large, and 

 loosely attached to one another : very little smoothing is effected 

 exteriorly, and were it not for the interior binding together of 

 the particles, the wall would apparently fall to pieces of itself. 



" The earth brought is prepared by water, as is the case with 

 all clay-building insects which I have observed ; and the insect 

 affects the vicinity of water, and hence, probably, is seldom 

 found far from wells. It builds in September and October, and 



