296 THE GOLDEN WASPS. 



creature, in her glorious array, is bent on glorious mischief. 

 You may, one day, happen to perceive, on the same post as 

 that chosen for her station by the golden wasp, a hole bored in 

 the wood, and you may also possibly see its borer, in the 

 shape of a little bee mother, of the carpenter craft, who, with 

 infinite pains and labour, has chiselled out with her jaws a 

 nursery tunnel, divided into cells, and stored it with provisions 

 for her young. But, ah ! that bejewelled ruby-tailed pryer 

 has also watched her in her tender labours, which she will 

 take good care to convert, if possible, to the benefit of her 

 own waspish offspring. No sooner does she issue from her 

 nest-hole, than the wily parasite darts from behind her screen, 

 her dazzling body and glittering wings flash for a moment in 

 the sun, then suddenly are lost in the dark perforation of the 

 tunnelled bee's nest. Woe then to its hapless tenants ! They 

 may feast awhile upon the sweets provided by maternal care ; 

 but only to be devoured by a grub of the golden wasp, who, in 

 her visit to their nest (fatal as it is brief), has deposited an egg, 

 or eggs, from whence will issue all this murderous mischief. 



While the infant bee, deep in its perforated cell, is exposed 

 to dangers such as these, the embryo gall-fly sleeps not a whit 

 more safely within its pulpy or woody globe, pierced, often, to 

 the centre by the egg-inserting instrument of a gall ichneumon. 

 Even the little aphis, or plant-louse, cannot escape, through its 

 minuteness, from the punctures of an ichneumon parasite pro- 

 portioned to itself; and the aphides' arch enemy, the ladybird, 

 while yet an aphis-eating larva, is preyed upon in turn by a 

 parasitic consumer. 



All the parasites above noticed, if not ichneumon, are, be it 

 remembered, flies, parasite flies, either four-winged, of the 

 order Hymenoptera, or two-winged, of the order Diptera. 

 They are all, also, when arrived as perfect insects at their 

 winged estates, livers upon vegetable food, for themselves, 

 usually, mere harmless sippers of honey. Only in the parental 

 character are their cruel and parasitic propensities developed, to 



