366 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



indispensable to the respiration of the insect, passes in 

 and out freely, while intruders are effectually excluded, 

 and in due time the pupa makes its way out of the 

 water to assume the perfect form. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 INSECTS. BEES, WASPS, ANTS, AND ICHNEUMONS. 



IF we were so ambitious as to aim at the production 

 of an exhaustive local natural history, and were quali- 

 fied for the task, we should necessarily devote a whole 

 volume, and not a small one, to the Order* we are 

 about to enter upon. Not only on account of the 

 great number of the species included in it, but also 

 from the fact that the histories of many of them are 

 very wonderful, so wonderful indeed, that the ento- 

 mologist who records them incurs the risk of being 

 credited with a very elastic imagination. There is 

 nothing in the whole known range of insect economy 

 more marvellous than that of the social members of 

 this group, the Bees, Wasps, and Ants ; nor are there 

 many more interesting facts than those which make 

 up the lives of the majority of the solitary parasitic 

 species, the Ichneumon-flies, Cuckoo-bees, and Sand- 

 wasps, to say nothing of the Mason-bees, Carpenter- 

 bees, and Leaf-cutters. 



We assume it to be pretty generally known that a 

 colony of the Honey Bee consists of three distinct 

 forms, the queen, the drone, and the neuter, each one 



Order HYMENOPTERA from the Greek hymen, a mem- 

 brane, and pteron, a wing. Wings four, nearly transparent. 



