28 NESTS OF MASON WASPS. 



and common ichneumon,* easily known by her black body, 

 red legs, and smoke-coloured wings, spotted at the base, this 

 tail-like appendage reaches unto inches, sometimes nearly three 

 a length, extreme, as longer than the body, but not super- 

 fluous, seeing that its office is often to penetrate, and that 

 through a barrier of clay, down to the very bottom of deep 

 nest-holes in walls or sand-banks, those, usually, of the mason 

 wasp, wherein, to the destruction of the hapless nestling, its 

 rightful occupant, it leaves behind the fatal deposit of a para- 

 sitic egg. 



If the maternal mason has, according to custom, provisioned 

 her nest, she has only, in providing for her offspring, furnished 

 a ready store for its cuckoo-like destroyer. In thus invading 

 the nursery -for tress of a marauding, life-destroying wasp, we 

 may view the proceedings of this long-tailed ichneumon, how- 

 ever cruel, with some indulgence on account of their retribu- 

 tive character. Not so, however, with the doings (to all ap- 

 pearance, barbarous in the extreme) of various other species 

 towards the quiet, peaceful caterpillar, insect-ward, a most 

 innocent member of society. We know, however, only too 

 well, that in its relation to ourselves the caterpillar holds a 

 somewhat different position, and, having acknowledged already 

 the services of Mother Ichneumon in reduction of the cater- 

 pillar crew, we must not quarrel, we suppose, with her mode 

 of effecting the desirable end. Let us see now though no 



* Plmpla manifcstztw. 



