280 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



breaker " has become almost restricted to those who 

 demolish effete buildings, so that the word chosen 

 will scarcely mislead any one. 



In our chapters on Masons and Miners we have 

 dealt with the clever work accomplished by a 

 number of insects in the hope that their progeny 

 might develop in peace behind the strong out- 

 works they have laboured to prepare, and enjoy 

 the abundant food they have provided. But in 

 numbers of cases the operations of the mother 

 insect have been watched, and at the right moment 

 the criminal watcher has popped in and laid her 

 own egg before the cell has been sealed up. It is 

 as well that the industrious bee or wasp knows 

 nothing of what has happened, for in the result 

 much of her patient labour has been thrown away, 

 for no good to her own species can come of it — 

 only benefit to the enemy of her race. 



There are numbers of the criminal classes of 

 insects who secure the success of their progeny by 

 planting their eggs in the bodies of other insects, 

 and these foster-parents are destroyed by the grub 

 of the parasite. With these, at present, we have 

 no concern, and must restrict our attention to 

 those that actually break into the nests of honest 

 and industrious labourers. 



In summer time we may often see sitting upon 

 a wall or a leaf in full sunshine a little " fly " of 

 very brilliant appearance, its hind body especially 

 being highly polished, of a ruby tint, with a metallic 

 shine that makes it look like a little ball of fire. 



