A FAMILIAR GUEST 15 



wild rose, which should alone be sufficient to ac- 

 count for all those victimized caterpillars. This 

 species is a regular dependent on the rose, dwelling 

 within its cocoon-like canopy of leaves, which are 

 drawn together with a few silken webs, and in 

 which it is commonly concealed by day. A little 

 persuasion upon either end of its leafy case, how- 

 ever, soon brings the little tenant to view as he 

 wriggles out, backward or forward, as the case 

 may be, and in a twinkling, spider-like, hangs sus- 

 pended by a web, which never fails him even in 

 the most sudden emergency. 



I can readily fancy the tiny hornet making a 

 commotion at one end of this leafy domicile and 

 the next instant catching the evicted caterpillar 

 " on a fly " at the other. Grasping her prey with 

 her legs and jaws, in another moment the wrig- 

 gling body is passive in her grasp, subdued by 

 the potent anaesthetic of her sting a hypodermic 

 injection which instantly produces the semblance 

 of death in its insect victim, reducing all the vital 

 functions to the point of dissolution, and then 

 holds them suspended literally prolongs life, it 

 would sometimes seem, even beyond its normal 

 duration by a process which I might call ductile 

 equation. This chemical resource is common to 

 all the hornets, whether their victims be grass- 



