73 
fruit-grower. In France, we are told, boys are employed to pre- 
vent the birds, chiefly sparrows, from destroying these useful little 
insects. 
The Syrphide, flies whose larve are armed with a singular 
mandible furnished like a trident with three points with which 
they transfix their prey. These grubs are most destructive to 
aphides of all kinds. (On Fig. 9 of the chart which I show you 
to-day you will see the larve in the act of killing an aphis.) 
A large group of Hymenoptera, wasp-like insects, are most 
merciless destroyers of insects, especially amongst the Lepidoptera, 
that is, butterflies and moths. They do not, however, confine, by 
any means, their attacks to members of this large order of insects, 
as even the destructive Cecidomyia, or Hessian fly, has its 
enemies in certain minute species of a genus closely allied to 
Ichneumonide. In Europe no less than three species of these 
little flies are known to render us valuable help in destroying the 
larvee of this dread scourge of the wheat-grower. 
In Victoria we have a number of beetles, especially amongst 
the carabide, which, both in the larval and perfect state, destroy 
vast quantities of grubs which affect our cereal crops, grass, 
lands, lawns, &c. I had one of these, our largest species 
(Hyperion Schretteri) alive to show you how he would demolish 
either a grub or a moth. Unfortunately, however, for me at 
least, an unfriendly rat got into the box, the lid of which I had 
incautiously left off, and in the morning nothing but a few frag- 
ments were left on which I could ponder as to the wrong principle 
of counting one’s chickens before they are hatched. 
Spiders also, at least most of them, are very useful animals, 
more especially as they are destructive to boring insects, also 
those which hybernate under the bark of our native trees. One 
(Focconia) which we know by the common name of tarantula, 
which it is not, being a perfect glutton, as the piles of insect 
débris, z.e., wing-cases, &c., will show. 
The tale has been told of gallant officers who were fearless in 
the face of an enemy, but would feel very uneasy in the imme- 
diate presence of a huge spider, and although they are useful we 
must be careful, as many of them bite sharply, and a few kinds are 
also venomous. 
The economy of some of our much despised hornets, more 
especially of the genera Sphex, Pompilius, and other large kinds, 
which we know principally by their orange-yellow bodies, often 
banded with black, and some of us by having felt their formidable 
ating, is well worth the trouble which it would entail in watching 
some of their peculiar habits, and as destroyers of grubs (above 
ground), centipedes, scorpions, cicade, &c., they have few 
equals. 
