Sr:ap-Biigs 245 



soft grub; the little Ichneumon babies, when they 

 hatch, eat the gi'ub up. 



I once saw an Ichneumon work over half an hour 

 trying to put its ovapositor througli the head of a 

 nail; evidently the black spot made by the head of 

 tlie nail was mistaken for a worm hole by the 

 Ichneumon. 



SNAP-BUGS (spring BEETLES) 



It is too bad that the name " bug " should be 

 attached to all these beetles ; we know they are not 

 bugs and snap-beetle would sound just as well as 

 snap-bug. But bugs is what they are called, and 

 we must follow suit even if we know better. The 

 finest of all snap-bugs is the big gray one with the 

 eye-spots on his shoulder blades (Fig. 222 larva, 

 Fig. 223 beetle). 



Sometimes the snap-beetle is called the Death 

 AVatch (Fig. 224) and when superstitious and 

 ignorant people hear the snapping on the walls 

 of an old house, they are sure that means someone 

 is going to die soon, someone who is living in that 

 house is going to die! If you told one of these 

 people that it was only a snap-bug calling its mate 

 it would do no good; they have been taught that 



