THE COCKROACH AND ITS ENEMY. 
BY G. A. PERKINS, M. D. 
Tur instinctive habits of insects furnish no small pro- ` 
portion of the interest which attaches to the study of that 
class of the animal kingdom. The wasps furnish their 
full share, and the student of nature never tires of inves- 
tigating the different methods by which they arrive at the 
same end,—each species following out the law impressed 
upon it by the Creator with its very being. 
The various species of Vespa deposit their eggs in a 
_ paper cell, and feed their young, in a larval stage, with 
insects, which they chew, and partially digest for this 
purpose. Another genus (Pompilus) excavates a hole 
in the sand in which she deposits numbers of flies, 
Spiders, etc., and with them an egg, and, burying them, 
leaves the larva to select its own food from these ma- 
terials. - Others, such as -Pelopeus, the Mud-dauber, 
places the same materials in curiously constructed cells 
of clay, and closes them up with the same masonry. 
Others still, not content with such small game, select the 
body of one of the larger insects, and deposit in it the 
germ of their future offspring. : 
Of this latter class is a beautiful trig little species 
(Ampulex Sibirica Fabr.), very common in Western 
Africa, and whose polished metallic body, shining like 
burnished steel, is familiar to all dwellers on that coast. 
The Ampulex selects the body of the gigantic Cockroach 
as the receptacle of its egg, and it is not-a little amusing 
to see in what a business-like and determined manner she 
sets herself to the task of capturing her victim, and serv- 
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