THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 1 G3 



Live prey is imperatively necessary for some larvae; 

 they require it so soon as they are born, and as the mother 

 cannot fetter it to their cradle, she poisons it. But more 

 ingenious than Locusta, she only administers as much 

 poison as is necessary to stupify or paralyze it, so that the 

 young insect, when it issues from the egg, hnds near it the 

 dying insect, which it ends by devouring. This is the case 

 with many of the Sphex species. The fly places one of its 

 eggs at the bottom of a little hole Avhich it makes in the 

 ground; it then goes out to hunt till it discovers a spider or 

 a caterpillar; and so soon as it finds one, it stings it scien- 

 tifically, and bears it quite paralyzed to its nest. 



Finally, having placed its victim close to its egg, the 

 Sphex closes the opening of the subterranean hollow with 

 a little stone, and takes wing, giving it no further heed. 

 Nothing more remains for maternal tenderness to do. 



Some ichneumons, or vlhrating files, are much more 

 rapacious and bold. There are some the larvte of which, 

 though extremely small, nevertheless attack large cater- 

 pillars, invade their bodies, and gnaAV away till death en- 

 sues. The mother, by the aid of her auger, pierces the 

 other's skin in order to insert her eggs beneath it. She 

 lays a pretty large number there, and when the young are 

 hatched, protected by the skin, they begin to eat the 

 fat, and it is only towards the close of their existence that 

 they make a breach in the vital organs, for, in order to 

 have always plenty of live flesh to devour, these hungry 

 anatomists take good care not to dissect them at first. 

 Then the caterpillar dies, and the larvte of the ichneumon 

 issue by numerous openings and spin silky cocoons on 

 the surface of the corpse. These nymphs, swathed in their 

 white winding-sheets of silk, are sometimes so numerous 

 and close together that they entirely conceal their victim. 



