348 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



cricket {Gryllus argentinus) more than twice its size, and stung 

 it. Then the wasp left its prey and ran o£f about eight inches 

 to a round hole which it had excavated in the black wood 

 mould. Back to the cricket again it came, turned it right 

 side up, seized it by the head and began to drag it along. 

 Although I can hardly credit the wasp with the conscious 

 intention, yet its sting had certainly been delivered in exactly 

 the right spot. The whole cricket was paralyzed except 

 for the two front pair of legs. The motor nerves of these 

 were unaffected and they kept up a convulsive pulling and 

 pushing which aided the wasp greatly in its difficult task. 

 Indeed the wasp did little but straddle its prey and steer, while 

 the cricket pushed itself along. 



Just before the latter disappeared still kicking into the 

 hole, the wasp stung it again and laid a small curved white 

 egg on one of the hind legs of the cricket . The hole was just 

 the right bore to admit the body of the victim and was six 

 inches deep. 



As soon as the sun came out, huge metallic Buprestid 

 beetles boomed about the trunk and the Woodhewers began 

 their sweet scale-songs, and close over our heads a tiny 

 Golden-crowned Manakin "" joined in with his Chuckle-de 

 dee! , the effort almost lifting him from his perch. 



In offering these notes on the jungle life about the Aremu 

 clearing, I have purposely refrained from classifying them, as 

 I wished the reader to realize how, in this region of super- 

 abundant life, events crowd in upon one — insect, bird, 

 flower, animal — without apparent rhyme or reason. Yet they 

 really pass in splendid sequence, the key to which lies in the 

 ultimate relation of each to the other. Some day, if we do not 

 delay until the destroying hand of man is laid over this whole 

 region, we may hope partially to disentangle the web. Then, 

 instead of a seeming tangle of unconnected events, all will be 



