130 LIFE STORIES OF AUSTRALIAN INSECTS. 



pant of the nest, and sometimes it starves it by 

 eating up the food provided for it. The bees and 

 wasps know this foe very well, and tender it so 

 warm a reception, that the brilliant-coated little 

 rascal has reason enough to double itself up so 

 that the righteous sting of its assailant can find 

 no hole in its armour. There is one instance on j 

 record when an outraged wasp, unable to sting one ' 

 of the cuckoo-fiies to death, gnawed off her wings, 

 and pitched her out on the ground. But the un- 

 daunted invader waited till the wasp departed, and 

 laid her tgg in the nest before she died. vSonie of 

 the cuckoo-flies are true parasites; one of them in- 

 fests the currant worm in Europe." 



Mr. W. W. Froggatt, in "Australian Insects," 

 says : 'Some of the earlier observers called them 

 "cuckoo-wasps" under the impression that their 

 larvae when hatched out in the nests of hunting 

 wasps or bees that filled the cells with insects, or 

 bee bread, fed upon the stored food supplies. But 

 later researches show that, though the eggs of 

 both the lawful occupant and the intruder may be 

 deposited in the cell, the latter does not hatch out 

 vmtil the former has devoured all the food placed 

 there by his mother, and is ready to pupate ; then 

 the ruby wasp baby comes out, attaches itself to 

 the full fed larva beside it and sucks him dry 

 pupating in his skin." He also records that ruby- 

 wasps bred out by him were parasitic on smaller 

 mason wasps, example Odyncrus and Alastor, 

 though in Europe many species live in the nests of 

 bees. 



