OR, MANTJAl, OF THE APIARY. 37 



at the head. The moth is admired for the glory of its coloring 

 and elegance of its form, and the beetle for the luster and 

 brilliancy of its elytra, or wing-covers ; but these insects only 

 revel in Nature's wealth, and live and die without labor or pur- 

 pose. Hymenoptera, usually less gaudy, often quite plain and 

 unattractive in color, are yet the most highly endowed among 

 insects. They live with a purpose in view, and are the best 

 models of industry to be found among animals. Our bees 

 practice a division of labor ; the ants are still better political 

 economists, as they have a specially endowed class in the com- 

 munity which are the soldiers, and thus are the defenders of 

 each ant-kingdom. Ants also conquer other communities, take 

 their inhabitants captive, and reduce them to abject slavery- 

 requiring them to perform a large portion, and sometimes the 

 whole, of the labor of the community. Ants tunnel under 

 streams, and in the tropics some leaf-eating species have been 

 observed to show no mean order of intelligence, as some ascend 

 trees to cut oflF the leafy twigs, while others remain below and 

 carry these branches through their tunnels to their under- 

 ground homes. Indeed, the Agricultural ant, of Texas, 

 actually clears land and grows a special kind of plant on vrhfih 

 it feeds. {See McCook's Ants.) 



The parasitic Hymenoptera are so-called because they lay 

 their eggs in other insects, that their offspring may have fresh 

 meat not only at birth, but so long as they need food, as the 

 insect fed upon generally lives till the young parasite, which 

 is working to disembowel it, is full-grown ; thus this steak is 

 ever fresh as life itself. These parasitic insects show won- 

 drous intelligence, or sense-development, in discovering their 

 prey. I have caught ichneumon-flies— a family of these para- 

 sites—boring through the bark and a thin layer of solid beech 

 or maple wood, and upon examination I found the prospective 

 victim further on in direct line with the insect auger, which 

 was tp intrude the fatal egg. I have also watched ichneumon- 

 flies depositing eggs in leaf-rolling caterpillars, so surrounded 

 with tough hickory leaves that the fly had to pierce several 

 thicknesses to place the egg in its snugly-ensconced victim. 

 Upon putting these leaf-rolling caterpillars in a box, I reared, 

 of course, the ichneumon-fly and not the moth. Is it instinct 



