LARVAL SACRIFICE 393 



togenesis, who in turn rebuild the house along more modern 

 lines. 



Twenty-four days after pupation the insect issues from 

 the cocoon, drills a neat hole through the wall of its nurs- 

 ery and emerges into the sunlight a perfect insect. Be- 

 hind her, she leaves a few, very tiny pellets of white excretia. 

 These are the rusty nails from the old structure. They are 

 all I can find of the larval body that is not incorporated in 

 the new. 



Fruit from the tree of instinctive wasp-love, the new- 

 born insect is only an atom in the world, but what a bundle 

 of unsolved mysteries to the humble student of her secrets! 

 At her "second birth," she becomes her own mother! Not 

 content with skin cells alone as building material, Histolysis 

 and Histogenesis have rebuilt the Huntress from herself. 

 She flies into the world with a fresh coat of paint, remodeled, 

 a thing brought up to date, but somewhere underneath, lie 

 the old timbers, reshaped and sawn to meet the new plan! 



