88 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



a home for their children, he cut down the stems of hem- 

 lock, growing in the field, which, being hollow, afforded 

 a snug place for the deposition of the wasp's eggs. 

 Eeducing these stems into lengths of about a foot each, he 

 then made a small entrance, stopping up the two ends. 

 His friends were thus anticipated in their wants, and were 

 spared the trouble of building for themselves. Now, you 

 must know that, amongst the solitary or wood genera 

 to which the wasp belongs, some have a fancy for one 

 class of animal food and some another. The whole species 

 frequent flowers and woods, and they are appointed to 

 keep down the excess of other insects ;- and, in the case 

 mentioned in my friend's garden, were some curious 

 illustrations of the marvellous instinct employed in their 

 work, and the provision they make for their offspring. 



Cutting open one of these stems of hemlock vertically, 

 a curious scene presented itself. From top to bottom 

 were a number of compartments, very neatly and cleverly 

 contrived, each for accommodating the grub that would 

 come from the parental egg. But each of these grubs 

 would require food as well as lodging, and it was certainly 

 very striking to observe how all these ends namely, the 

 destruction of destructive insects, the fashioning of a 

 dwelling for a future group, which the fond parent, who 

 fed, not upon animal, but vegetable life, herself sucking 

 with that exquisite tongue the sweet matter found in 

 flowers, would never behold were accomplished. 



Feeding upon my friend's plants were a number of 

 very small, newly born, pea-green caterpillars, the larvae 

 of some lepidopterous species. Seizing one of these cater- 

 pillars, the wasp, with her sharp ovipositor, dropped into its 

 body, through the minute opening, one egg ; then, grasp- 

 ing the prey with her feet, away she flew to her hemlock 

 home, and deposited that living caterpillar in one of the 



