Parasites 



It is written in the book of fate: every- 

 thing shall happen without impediment in the 

 burrow of the Bembex and next year, if we 

 open the cells of that mighty huntress of Gad- 

 flies, we shall find some which contain a 

 russet-silk cocoon, the shape of a thimble with 

 its orifice closed with a flat lid. In this silky 

 tabernacle, which is protected by the hard 

 outer shell, is a Parnopes carnea. As for the 

 grub of the Bembex, that grub which wove 

 the silk and next encrusted the outer casing 

 with sand, it has disappeared entirely, all but 

 the tattered remnants of its skin. Disap- 

 peared how? The Golden Wasp's grub has 

 eaten it. 



Another of these splendid malefactors is 

 decked in lapis-lazuli on the thorax and in 

 Florentine bronze and gold on the abdomen, 

 with a terminal scarf of azure. The nomen- 

 clators have christened her Stilhum calens, 

 Fab. When Eumenes AmadeV- has built on 

 the rock her agglomeration of dome-shaped 

 cells, with a casing of little pebbles set in the 

 plaster, when the store of Caterpillars is con- 

 sumed and the secluded ones have hung their 



*A species of Mason-wasp. — Translator's Note. 

 i95 



