90 THE AMERICAN SILK WORM. 
dangerous foe is the Ichneumon fly. A Tachina-like 
fly also deposits its eggs in the body of the larva. 
The Ichneumon flies can pa seen in summer flying about 
bushes in search of caterpillars in which to deposit 
their eggs, and I have observed them often flying for an 
hour among shrubs where no worms were feeding, for 
which they searched carefully, peering under almost every 
leaf. When an Ichneumon detects the presence of a worm, 
she flies around it for a few seconds, and then rests upon the 
leaf near her victim; moving her antenne very rapidly 
above the body of the worm, but not touching it, and 
bending her abdomen under the breast, she seizes her 
ovipositor with the front legs, and waits for a favorable 
moment, when she quickly deposits a little oval white 
egg upon the skin of the larva. She remains quiet for 
sometime and then deposits another egg upon the lar- 
va, which only helplessly jerks its hae every time an 
egg is laid on it. She thus lays some eight or ten eggs” 
which adhere so firmly to the skin, that it is very difficult 
to take them off. After several days these eggs hatch 
out, and the small white larve e be seen at work 
as soon as they are out of the eggs, digging their way 
under the skin of the worm, on whose fatty portions 
they feed. The caterpillar, however, continues to eat 
and grow, and lives long enough to make its cocoon, 
but when once enclosed in it, ma parasites which prey 
upon it have already eaten the fatty portions, and now at- 
: the vital parts of the larva, which they speedily con- — 
