28 Hymenoptera, Highest of Insects. 
thus this steak is ever fresh as life itself. These parasitic 
insects show wondrous intelligence, or sense development, 
in discovering their prey. I have caught ichneumon-flies 
—a family of these parasites—boring through the bark and 
a thin layer of solid beech or maple wood, and upon exam- 
ination I found the prospective victim further on in direct 
line with the insect auger, which was to intrude the fatal 
egg. I have also watched ichneumon-flies depositing eggs 
in leaf-rolling caterpillars, so surrounded with tough hickory 
leaves that the fly had to pierce several thicknesses to place 
the egg in its snugly-ensconced victim. Upon putting 
these leaf-rolling caterpillars in a box, I reared, of course, 
the ichneumon-fly and not the moth. And is it instingt or 
reason that enables these flies to gauge the number of 
their eggs to the size of the larva which is to receive them, 
so that there may be no danger of famine and starvation, 
for true it is that while small caterpillars will receive but 
few eggs, large ones may receive several. Even the 
honey-hee sometimes falls victim to such parasites, as I 
shall show in speaking of enemies of bees. How strange 
the habits of the saw-fly, with its wondrous instruments, 
more perfect than any saws of human workmanship, and the 
gall-flies, whose poisonous stings, as they fasten their eggs 
to the oak, rose, or other leaves, cause the abnormal 
growth of food for the still unhatched young. In the 
south it is reported that bees often obtain no small amount 
of nectar from species of oak-galls. The providing and 
caring for their young, which are at first helpless, is pecu- 
liar among insects, with slight exception, to the Hymenop- 
tera, and among all animals is considered a mark of high 
rank. Such marvels of instinct, if we may not call it intel- 
ligence, such acumen of sense perception, such wonderful 
habits, all these, no less than the compact structure, small 
size and specialized organs of nicest finish, more than war- 
rant that grand trio of American naturalists, Agassiz, 
Dana, and Packard, in placing Hymenoptera first in rank 
among insects. As we shall detail the structure and habits 
of the highest of the high—the bees—in the following 
pages, I am sure no one will think to degrade the rank of 
these wonders of the animal kingdom, 
