z& Hymenoptera^ Highest of Insects. 



thus this steak is ever fresh as life itself. These parasitic 

 insects show wondrous intelligence, or sense developnnent. 

 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 instinJt 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-bee 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 mar\'els 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. 



