HABITS OF SOME HYMENOPTERA. 15 



to the eggs of other insects, which they puncture, and the little 

 creatures produced from tlie latter find a sufficient quantity of food 

 to supply all their wants within the larger eggs they occupy. The 

 ruby-tails {Chrysididce) and the cuckoo-bees {Hyl(BUS, Sphecodes, 

 Nomada, Alelecta, Epeolus, Ceelioxys, and Stelis) lay their eggs in 

 the provisioned nests of other insects, whose young are robbed 

 of their food by the earlier-hatched intruders, and are conse- 

 quently starved to death. The wood-wasps ( Orabronidce), and 

 numerous kinds of sand-wasps {Larradce, Bemhicidce, Sphegidce, 

 PompilidcB, and ScoliadtB), mud-wasps {Pelopceus), the stingino- 

 velvet-ants {3Iutilladai), (Plate I. Fig. 3, Mutilla coccinea,) and the 

 solitary wasps {Odynerus and Eumenes), are predaceous in their 

 habits, and provision their nests with other insects, which serve for 

 food to their young. 



The food of ants consists of animal and vegetable juices; and 

 though these industrious little animals sometimes prove troublesome 

 by their fondness for sweets, yet, as they seize and destroy many 

 insects also, their occasional trespasses may well be forgiven. Even 

 the proverbially irritable paper-making wasps and hornets {PoUstes 

 and Vespd) are not without their use in the economy of nature ; 

 for they feed their tender offspring not only with vegetable juices, 

 but with the softer parts of other insects, great numbers of which 

 they seize and destroy for this purpose. The solitary and social 

 bees {Andrenad(B and Apidce) live wholly on the honey and pollen 

 of flowers, and feed their young with a mixture of the same, called 

 bee-bread. 



Various kinds of bees are domesticated for the sake of their 

 stores of wax and honey, and ai-e thus made to contribute directly 

 to the comfort and convenience of man, in return for the care and 

 attention afforded them. Honey and wax are also obtained 

 from several species of wild bees {Melipona, Triyona, and Tetra- 

 gona), essentially different from the domesticated kinds. While 

 bees and other hymenopterous insects seek only the gratification of 

 their own inclinations, in their frequent visits to floAvers, they carry 

 on their bodies the yellow dust or pollen from one blossom to 

 another, and scatter it over the parts prejiared to receive and be 

 fertilized by it, whereby they render an important service to 

 vegetation. 



