644 WASPS, 
THE next group of the Terebrantia is called Entomophaga, or Insect- 
eaters, because the greater number of them are parasitic upon other insects, 
just as the saw-flies are parasitic upon vegetables. In these insects the 
ovipositor is furnished with two delicate spicula, and the last segments of the 
abdomen are not formed into a telescope-like tube. 
The first family is that of the Cynipida, or Gall Insects, the creatures by 
whose means are produced the well-known galls upon various trees, the so- 
called oak-apple being perhaps the best known, and the ink-gall (also found 
on the oak) the most valuable. These Galls are formed by the deposition of 
an egg in the leaf, branch, stem, twig, or even root ot the plant, and its 
consequent growth. 
The true Ichneumons, of which a specimen is given in the illustration, 
form a vast group of insects, the British Ichneumonicz alone numbering many 
more than a thousand described and acknowledged specics. In them the 
oviposiror is straight, and is employed in inserting the eggs into the bodies of 
other inse :ts, mostly in their larval state. In some cases, this slender and 
apparently feeble instrument is able to pierce through solid wood, and is 
insinuated by a movement exactly like that which 1s employed by a carpenter 
when using a brad-awl. When not engaged in this work, the ovipositor is 
protected by two slender sheaths that inclose it on either side. 
Were it not for the Ichneumons, our fields and gardens would be hope- 
lessly ravaged by caterpillars and grubs of all kinds, for practical entomo- 
logists always find that when they attempt to rear insects from the egg or 
the larval state, they must count upon losing a very large percentage by the 
Ichneumons. 
IN the next great division of Hymenopterous insects, the ovipositor of 
the female is changed into a sharply-pointed weapon, popularly calkd a 
sting,.and connected with a gland in which is secreted a poison closely 
analogous to that which envenoms a serpent’s tooth. 
First come those curious arid interesting insects known popularly by the 
names of SAND Wasps and Woop Wasps. These creatures are in the 
habit of making burrows into the ground or in posts, and placing therein their 
eggs, together with the bodies of other insects which are destined to serve as 
food for the future progeny. Spiders are sometimes captured and immured 
for this purpose. In many instances the captured insects are stung to death 
before they are placed in the burrow, but it is often found that they only 
receive a wound sufficient to paralyse them, so that they lead « semi-torpid 
life until they are killed and eaten by the young grub. Two of these Sand 
Wasps are tulerably common in England. One of them (rahvo cribarius), 
the woodborer, drilling its burrow into posts, palings, and similar sub- 
stances. It feeds its young with the larve of one of the leaf-rolling 
caterpillars that ives in the oak, and is scient'fically known by the name of 
Tortrix chlorana. It also employs for this purpose several two-winged 
insects. One species of these burrowing wasps prefers the well known 
cuckoo-spit insect for this purpose (Aphrophora spumaria), pulling it out ot 
its frothy bed by mens of its Jong legs. 
Another of these insects, called PAzlanthus triangulum, is in the habit of 
provisioning its burrow with the hive-bee, which it contrives to master in spite 
of the formidable weapon possessed by its victim, and then murders or 
paralyses by means of its sting. M. Latreille mentioned that he saw from 
fifty to sixty of these insects busily engaged in burrowing into a sandbank 
not more than forty yards long ; and as each female lays five or six eggs, and 
deposits a bee with each egg, the havoc made among the hives is by no 
means inconsiderable. 
THE true Ants, as is well known, associate in great numbers, and, as is 
