MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 33 



fresh meat not only at birth, but so long as they need food, as 

 the insect fed upon generally lives till the young parasite, 

 which is working to disembowel it, is full-grown. Thus thi& 

 steak is ever fresh as life itself. These parasitic insects show 

 wondrous intelligence, or sense development, in discovering 

 this prey. I have caught ichneumon-flies — a family of these 

 parasites — ^boring through an eighth or quarter-inch of solid 

 beech or maple wood, and upon examination I found the pros- 

 pective victim further on in direct line with the insect auger, 

 which was to intrude the fatal egg. I have also watched ich- 

 neumon-flies depositing eggs in leaf-rolling caterpillars, so sur- 

 rounded with tough hickory leaves that ihe 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 instinct or reason that enables these flies to gauge the 

 number of their eggs to the size of the larva which is to re- 

 ceive them, so that there may be no danger of famine and 

 starvation, for true it is that while small caterpillars will re- 

 ceive but one egg, large ones may receive several. How 

 strange, too, the habits of the saw-fly, with its wondrous in- 

 struments more perfect than any saws of human workman- 

 ship, and the gall-flies, whose poisonous sting as they fasten 

 their eggs to the oak, willow or other leaves, causes the ab- 

 normal growth of food for the still unhatched young. The 

 providing and caring for their young, which are at first help- 

 less, is peculiar among insects, with slight exception, to the 

 Hymenoptera, and among all animals is considered a mark 

 of high rank. Such marvels of instinct, if we may not call 

 it intelligence, such acumen of sense perception, such habits 

 — that must go hand-in-hand with the most harmonious of 

 communities known among animals, of whatever branch — all 

 these, no less than the compact structure, small size and 

 specialized organs of nicest finish, more than warrant that 

 grand trio of American naturalists, Agassiz, Dana and Pack- 

 ard, in placing Hymenoptera as 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 ani- 

 mal kingdom. 



