THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 187 
their young, and to a higher intellectual development, which 
is shown especially in the arrangements made for the nourish- 
ment of the larve; since it requires both greater energy and 
more intelligence to discover and attack a particular species 
of insect than merely to lay an egg on the plant which has 
served the mother herself for nourishment,” the passage from 
the one to the other having, as he conceives, “ been slow and 
gradual;” and, “on the basis of this increased energy, 
intelligence, and adaptability,” a still further advance was 
made by other groups, which, to secure their eggs from 
molestation, transport their victims to a place of security, 
involving certain difficulties with which many may have 
found it impossible to cope. “Thus the ovipositor of the 
Tenthredo became the sting of the wasp; and thus those 
species which carried off their victim to a place of conceal- 
ment would abandon the habit of laying their eggs inside the 
victim.” But the Tenthredinide can in nowise be regarded 
as inferior in intellectual capacity to the Cynipide, which 
exercise no constructive ingenuity in the production of their 
gall-tenements, as exhibited by some of the former in the 
weaving of their reticulated cocoons and other artistic 
performances; while the admirable construction of their 
double-saws, whose “various modifications might furnish 
ideas for improved mechanical instruments,” their mullti- 
.cellular wings, and, in some instances, highly developed 
furcate and pectinate antenne (Schyzocerus male, Lophyrus 
male) stamp them as infinitely superior in_ structural 
organisation to the Cynipide. Yet the natural affinities of 
these respective families prescribe their relative sequence 
and precedence in inverse ratio to their faculties and endow- 
ments. As regards the “insect-piercing species,” their 
restrictive action being diffused over a vast extent of insect- 
life, as compensating influences against excessive fecundity, 
a multitude of these, distributed throughout the whole range, 
serves to maintain due equilibrium on either side; which is 
oracularly interpreted as having “led to the formation of 
many new species:” but this group consists of several very 
distinct races, the Ichneumonidae, especially those consorting 
with the Aculeate tribes, being conspicuously superior in 
energy and intellectual development to the Chalcididae, next 
in succession, reputed higher in the scale of structural 
