Woodworkers 



which all the caterpillars selected for their final retreat, 

 not one being observed where the tree was covered with 

 bark. The ingenuity of the little architects consisted in 

 scraping the cell almost to the very surface of the wood, 

 as thin as writing-paper. Previous, therefore, to the 

 chrysalis making its way through the feeble barrier, it 

 could not have been suspected that an insect was lodged 

 under the smooth wood. We observed more than one 

 of these insects in the act of breaking through/ this 

 covering, within which there is besides a round movable 

 lid, a sort of brown wax." 



Beetles of various other kinds are notorious carpenters ; 

 it would, however, require a good-sized volume to describe 

 them and their doings. 



Before we leave the wood-borers and devote our space 

 to woodworkers of another kind, we must mention an 

 insect which, though absolutely harmless to human 

 beings, never fails, by reason of its formidable appearance, 

 to arouse a considerable amount of apprehension in the 

 minds of those who look on it for the first time ; we refer 

 to the giant wood-wasp. The female, which measures 

 about an inch and a half, is banded with yellow and black 

 and of wasp-like appearance ; at the end of its body is a 

 formidable-looking instrument which is usually mistaken 

 for a sting ; as a matter of fact it is simply the apparatus, 

 called an ovipositor, with which the female bores a hole 

 in wood, that she may lay her eggs in its tissues. 



Felled or sickly fir-trees are favoured by the wood- 

 wasps ; the female bores a hole through the bark with her 

 awl-like ovipositor and lays her eggs in the wood. The 

 larvae, when they hatch, tunnel in all directions, eating 

 away the wood as they go. It passes through their bodies 

 and plugs up the part of the tunnel which has been 

 traversed, so that the larvae always dwell in a closed 

 chamber. There seems to be some doubt concerning the 

 eventual career of the insect. Some authorities aver that 

 the grub tunnels almost to the surface of the tree before 



