178 TRANSFORMATIONS, OF INSECTS. 



segments. It is very injurious to cereal crops. When the wheat 

 crop is about to ripen, if some white ears are seen elevated above 

 the others which are heavy, green, and somewhat bent, there is 

 a tolerable certainty of not finding the grains but of discovering 

 one or more larvae of Ccphiis pygvicEus. These small white larvai 

 may be exposed by breaking the white ears, and they live in the 

 powdery dust which they have produced by gnawing the corn, 

 and by their dejections. These larvae appear to have a strong 

 impression that the wheat ear is all very well for a temporary 

 home, but that it is dangerous for a permanent one, for before the 



Sirex gigas. 



harvest the insect crawls down the stem and buries itself in the 

 ground near the roots. There it makes a cocoon, and hybernates 

 through the winter, out of the way of sickle and scythe. 



The SiricidcB are a more numerous family than the last, 

 and they may be knov/n by their long bodies and short thick 

 mandibles ; the antenna; being thread-like. The principal genus 

 is Sircx. The females of it have a long, straight saw, which is 

 toothed, for it has to pierce something harder than leaves and 

 rose twigs. The species are more common in Germany, Northern 

 Europe, and North America, than in southern districts ; and 

 they frequent the forests of firs and pines. The great Sirex — 

 Sircx gigas — is a splendid insect ; the female is black and yellow, 



