x 
82 INSECTA. 
ill, and a lip; at the extremity of the latter is a fusus for the 
transmission of the silky material that is to be employed in con- 
structing the cocoon of the nymph. ‘ 
Some feed on vegetable substances, while others, always 
destitute of feet, devour the carcases of Insects together with 
their larve, nymphs, and even eggs. 
To remedy their want of locomotive powers, the mother 
furnishes them with provisions, sometimes by transporting 
aliment into the nests she has prepared for them, which 
are frequently constructed with so much art as to excite our 
wonder and surprise, and sometimes by depositing her eggs 
in the body of the larve and nymphs of Insects, on which her 
progeny are to feed. 
Other larve of Hymenoptera, also destitute of feet, require 
more elaborated and frequently renewed supplies of aliment, 
both vegetable and animal. ‘These are reared in commton by 
neuters forming communities, of which they have the sole care; 
their labours and mode of life will always continue to excite 
our admiration and astonishment. 
Almost all Hymenopterous Insects, in their perfect state, 
live on flowers and are usually most abundant in southern cli- 
mates. Their period of life, from their birth to their ultimate 
metamorphosis, is limited to a year. 
~ M. Leon Dufour in his Memoire sur PAnatomie des Sco- 
lies—Journ. de Phys., Sept. 1828—remarks, that in all the 
Hymenoptera submitted to his scalpel, the trachee are a de- 
gree more perfect than those of the other orders of Insects; 
that instead of being formed by cylindrical and elastic vessels, 
the diameter of which decreases by their successive divisions, 
they present constant dilatations, decided vesicles favourable 
to the greater or less permanence of air, and susceptible 
of extension and diminution, according to the quantity of 
that fluid admitted. On each side of the base of the abdomen 
may be found one of these vesicles; it is large, oval, and of a 
dead lacteous-white, giving off here and. there vascular 
trachee which are distributed among the adjacent organs. In 
penetrating into the thorax it is strangulated, dilates again, 
