254 EYE SPY 



wasp lugs him to the mouth of one of the bur- 

 rows, and soon disappears in its depths. 



Further than this few have followed the couple. 

 But Professor C. V. Riley, our government ento- 

 mologist, has unearthed the entire mystery, and 

 eye - witnessed the fate of our cicada, and I am 

 thus enabled to picture the rest of the tragedy. 

 What now follows is very similar to what I de- 

 scribed in a previous paper concerning the mud- 

 wasp nest packed with its dead spiders. Our ci- 

 cada is not dead — more's the pity. The thrust of 

 the sting has only paralyzed the insect, in order 

 that the young of the hornet may be provided with 

 living food. From the opening of the tunnel in 

 the sand our harvest - fly was lugged a distance 

 of about six inches, when the tunnel branched 

 in various directions. Down a branch for about 

 eight inches more, and his journey terminated in 

 a dungeon, where his career was doomed to end. 

 Doubtless each of the other branches held one or 

 two similar prisoners, for the cicada is the favorite 

 prey of this particular wasp. Once arrived at the 

 dungeon, the hornet deposits an egg upon its vic- 

 tim, and leaves him in its charge. In a few days 

 it hatches into a larva with such a voracious ap- 

 petite that within a week it has devoured the con- 

 tents of the cicada's shell and reached its full 

 growth. It now incloses itself within a silky co- 

 coon, and after abiding the winter emerges at the 



