130 SERVICES OF ICHNEUMONS^ 



eggs to tlie bodies of certain larvae, because 

 their maggots are provided with instruments 

 for piercing the skins. Others, Uke the cuckoo 

 among birds, lay their eggs in the nests of in- 

 sects, which hatch them to devour their own 

 young. Bees are particularly subject to such 

 insidious enemies. No concealment, unless 

 perhaps under water, seems sufficient to baffle 

 an ichneumon, and nothing can surpass its 

 perseverance until its eggs are safely placed in 

 the conditions suitable to its progeny. 



Great indeed are their services to mankind, 

 in preventing the injuries of the insects which 

 prey upon our corn. " In vain,'* to use the 

 words of the able naturalist from whose writings 

 quotations have been previously given, " does 

 the destructive cecidomyia of the wheat conceal 

 its larvae within the glumes that so closely 

 cover the grain. Three species of these minute 

 benefactors of our race, sent in mercy by 

 Heaven, know how to introduce their eggs into 

 them, thus preventing the mischief they would 

 otherwise occasion, and saving mankind from 

 the horrors of famine." It would be foreign 

 to the purposes of a popular little book Hke 

 the present, to enter into the entomological 

 details of the formation and habits of these 



