178 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
segments. It is very injurious to cereal crops. When the wheat 
crop is about to ripen, if some white ears are seen elevated above 
the others which are heavy, green, and somewhat bent, there is 
a tolerable certainty of not finding the grains but of discovering 
one or more larve of Cephus pygmaeus. These small white larvae 
may be exposed by breaking the white ears, and they live in the 
powdery dust which they have produced by gnawing the corn, 
and by their dejections. These larve appear to have a strong 
impression that the wheat ear is all very well for a temporary 
home, but that it is dangerous for a permanent one, for before the 
= = ——— —=s 
fais # \ NS 
ve \ 
Y \ 
Sirex gigas. 
harvest the insect crawls down the stem and buries itself in the 
ground near the roots. There it makes a cocoon, and hybernates 
through the winter, out of the way of sickle and scythe. 
The Szriced@ are a more numerous family than the last, 
and they may be known by their long bodies and short thick 
mandibles ; the antennze being thread-like. The principal genus 
is Szvex. Whe females of it) havea long, 
toothed, for it has to pierce something harder than leaves and 
straight saw, which is 
rose twigs. The species are more common in Germany, Northern 
Europe, and North America, than in southern districts ; and 
they frequent the forests of firs and pines. The great Szrer— 
Sirex gigas—is a splendid insect: the female is black and yellow, 
