212 THE WOOD-WASP 



carried it into the house, setting it free again after 

 examining its beauties. 



Give a dog a bad name call a stingless fly a wasp 

 and you deprive it of all title to mercy. Sirex is not 

 a wasp, as I have said, but member of a separate family 

 of large insects, two species of which are known, but are 

 far from common, in this country, though they abound in 

 the pine forests of Germany. My captive was a newly- 

 hatched female, with four glittering, diaphanous wings, 

 wearing the characteristic yellow and black livery of the 

 wasp. The following particulars may help to identify the 

 creature : body and head black, with a conspicuous yellow 

 patch behind each eye ; the first two and last three seg- 

 ments of the abdomen bright yellow, the remainder black ; 

 legs and antennae bright yellow. The total length of the 

 animal is not less than one inch and a half. Altogether 

 a brilliant, showy fly; but what adds to its formidable 

 appearance is a long, shining black weapon proceeding 

 from the under surface of the fore-part of the body, and 

 projecting far beyond the extremity of the tail, or what 

 may be unscientifically termed the tail. I have called it 

 a weapon, for that is what its appearance suggests a 

 powerful sting out of all reasonable proportion to the size 

 of the insect. It is no weapon, however, but a domestic 

 implement of a very remarkable character. It is an 

 auger or borer, used to deposit eggs in solid timber, 

 chiefly of the coniferous kind. The parent insect chooses 

 wood neither vigorous nor rotten ; apparently the sap or 

 resin of a fir in full growth does not suit the young grub, 

 but a moribund tree or a freshly-felled one answers every 

 purpose. The egg having been deposited at a depth of 

 about three-quarters or half an inch in the timber, hatches 



