406 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



auger into the solid trunks of trees; — they will not fail to 

 observe and admire the untiling scrutiny of the ichneumon- 

 flies, those little busy-bodies, for ever on the alert, and prying 

 into every place to find the lurldng caterpillar, grub, or mag- 

 got, wherein to thrust their eggs; — the curious swellings pro- 

 duced by the gall-flies, and inhabited by their young; — the 

 clay cells of the mud-wasp, plastered against the walls of our 

 houses, each one containing a single egg, together with a large 

 number of living spiders, caught and imprisoned therein solely 

 for the use of the little mason's young, which thus have con- 

 stantly before them an ample supply of fresh provisions; — 

 the holes of the stump-wasp, stored with hundreds of horse- 

 flies for the same purpose; — the skill of the leaf-cutter bee in 

 cutting out the semicircular pieces of leaves for her patchwork 

 nest; — the thimble-shaped cells of the ground-bee, hidden, in 

 clusters, under some loose stone in the fields, made of little 

 fragments of tempered clay, and stored with bee-bread, the 

 work of many weeks for the industrious laborer; — the waxen 

 cells made by the honey-bee, without any teaching, upon 

 purely mathematical principles, measured only with her an- 

 tennae, and wrought with her jaws and tongue; — the water- 

 tight nests of the hornet and wasp, natural paper-makers from 

 the beginning of time, who are not obliged to use rags or 

 ropes in the formation of their durable paper combs, but have 

 applied to this purpose fibres of wood, a material that the art 

 of man has not yet been able to manufacture into paper; — 

 the herculean labors of ants in throwing up their hillocks, or 

 mining their galleries, compared wherewith, if the small size 

 of the laborers be taken into account, the efforts of man in his 

 proudest monuments, his pyramids and his catacombs, dwindle 

 into insignificance. These are only a few of the objects de- 

 serving of notice among the insects of this order; many others 

 might be mentioned, that would lead us to observe with what 

 consummate skill these little creatures have been fashioned, 

 and how richly they have been endowed with instincts, that 

 never fail them in providing for their own welfare, and that of 

 their future progeny. 



Comparatively speaking, there are not many of the Hymeno- 



