'.ioG mSTOKV OF 



CHAP. IV. 



OF THE ICHNEUMON ILY. 



Every rank of insects, how voracious soever, have enemies 

 that are terrible to them, and that revenge upon them the 

 injuries done upon the rest of the animated creation. The 

 wasp, as we have seen, is very troublesome to man, and very for- 

 midable to the insect tribe ; but the ichneumon fly (of which 

 there are many varieties) fears not the wasp itself; it enters its 

 retreats, plunders its habitations, and takes possession of that 

 cell for its own young, which the wasp had laboriously built for 

 a dearer posterity. 



Though there are many different kinds of this insect, yet the 

 most formidable, and that best known, is called the common 

 ichneumon, with four wings, like the bee, a long, slender, black 

 body, and a three-forked tail, consisting of bristles ; the two 

 outermost black, and the middlemost red. This fly receives its 

 name from the little quadruped, which is found to be so destruc- 

 tive to the crocodile, as it bears a strong similitude in its cour- 

 age and rapacity. 



Though this instrument is, to all appearance, slender and fee- 

 ble, yet it is found to be a weapon of great force and efficacy. 

 There is scarcely any substance which it will not pierce ; and 

 indeed it is seldom seen but employed in penetration. This is 

 the weapon of defence ; this is employed in destroying its prey ; 

 and still more, by this the animal deposits her eggs wherever 



ployed in tlie other parts of the fabric, but miu-h more compact and solid. 

 A kind of cover is next formed, and then a small comb of hexagonal cells, 

 U'itli their openings domiward, for the purpose of containing their eg,'s, 

 •■aid the grubs which issue from tliem. 



The eggs are soon hatched, and the mother nourislies her offspring with 

 food which she brings to them from abroad. When the grubs have attained 

 their full size they each spin a silken bed, in which they undergo their me- 

 tamorphoses into pvpce, and afterwards into perfect or Avinged insects. 

 Those first produced are the neuters. These are working insects, or la- 

 oourers ; that is to say, they are from this period occupied in the work of 

 constructing, and in the duty of nourishing the remaining grubs. The fe- 

 males stitl continuing to lay, the family is consequently augmented ; and 

 the nest becoming now too small, necessity requires it to he enlarged. This 

 oj^eralion falls wholly upon the labourers. 



