A HONEY-DEW PICNIC l6l 



streaked halo among the leaves, at length settling 

 among a little company of flies. Softly behind 

 him creeps a brown wasp {Polistes), with his 

 mouth watering, while from the opposite quarter 

 a steel-blue mud-wasp approaches, with apparently 

 similar designs. Neither invader sees the other. 

 Simultaneously, as though answering to a signal, 

 the two make a dash at the moth ; but he is too 

 quick for them. In a twinkling he is off in his 

 pretty halo again, while the two disappointed con- 

 testants have clinched, and with stings and jaws 

 vigorously plying fall to the jungle below, and 

 seek satisfaction in mortal combat. 



Here is a pretty little yellow and black banded 

 flower-fly, which is having a quiet little picnic all 

 by himself on a bed of yarrow bloom close by. 

 But a big black paper-hornet has suddenly seen 

 an attraction hither also, and is soon creeping 

 stealthily among the blossoms with a wild and 

 hungry look. But the hornets seemed to waste 

 their time on the flies. Seemingly confident in 

 their less complicated wing machinery, the two- 

 winged fly rarely sought escape until within very 

 close range of his enemy, and his resources never 

 seemed to disappoint him at the critical moment. 



Among the insect assemblage was a large num- 

 ber of ants of all kinds and sizes, the common 



