272 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



bristle-like hairs with which the legs are thickly clad, are 

 doubtless useful in retaining the hold of the insect. 



The long and slender many-jointed antennse are also covered 

 with a thick down which has an iridescent effect when the light 

 plays on those organs, and during the life of the insect has a 

 most beautiful effect, owing to the restless, quivering movements 

 which characterise all the antennse ichneumons, and which at 

 once serve to distinguish those insects at a glance. 



The chief beauty, however, of the insect lies in the wings 

 To the naked eye they are simply colourless, transparent appen- 

 dages, with a little black spot on the outer edge of the upper 

 pair. But when placed under a magnifier, and with the light 

 properly directed upon them, they blaze out in iridescent glory 

 that almost fatigues the eye with its resplendence. One of these 

 insects is now under the microscope before me, a low power of 

 only thirty-sbc diameters being used, so that each wing appears 

 to be about three inches in length, and in order to give an idea 

 of the extraordinary colouring of these apparently transparent 

 organs, I will describe as far as I can the appearance of the 

 right-hand upper wing. 



The material of which it is made is a translucent membrane, 

 appearing single with this low power, but shown by a higher 

 power to be double. The wing is traversed by numerous nervures 

 to support it, as the tracery of a Gothic window supports the 

 glass, and which divide it into numerous compartments, techni- 

 cally called cells, each of which is known by name to entomo- 

 logists. The whole of the membrane is covered with very 

 minute hairs, dotted at regular intervals, like the holes in per- 

 forated zinc, and as each of these hairs is in fact a minute prism, 

 they break up the light into the well-known prismatic colours. 



Upon the outer edge of the wing is a triangular black spot, 

 which is not transparent, and serves as a foil to show off the 

 lovely colours by which it is surrounded. The whole upper part 

 of the wing is pale yellow, passing, by the gentlest imaginable 

 transition, through delicate rays into lively pink, of the character 

 termed "rose-carmine." Towards the lower edge of the pink, 

 a slight infusion of blue steals in, being first purple and then 

 changing to azure. Here the colours are abruptly cut by a 

 uervure and one of the large cells next comes into view. This 

 cell is wonderfully beautiful, for the colours are no longer 



