GARDEN INSECTS. 



187 



umbelliferous and other flowers diligently searching for larva). 

 These they sting, so as to render them insensible, and then 

 carry off to the hole in which they have decided their family 

 shall be reared. The food having been collected, the eggs are 

 laid therein, and the entrance to the nest is sealed, the mother- 

 wasp taking no further trouble with it. In due time the larva? 

 are hatched out, eat of the food ready to hand, and become 

 pupa?, emerging the next season to commence again the cycle of 

 existence. To distinguish between these Sand-wasps (Odyneri) 

 and the Social wasps is comparatively easy. The body, which in 

 all wasps is more or less pear-shaped, is markedly so in the case 

 of the Odyneri, and has been aptly likened by Mr. Butler to a 

 " peg-top " surmounted by a polo cap which is too small for it. 

 A still further distinction lies in the tarsal hooks, which are 

 simple in the Social, and hooked in the Solitary wasps. These 

 latter obtrude their presence upon man by making a nest under 

 his very nose. In one instance known to me, a female solitary 

 wasp had the temerity to take up her abode on the frame of a 

 blackboard, which was constantly in use in a schoolroom, bringing 

 larva? to her quarters in the way characteristic of the insects. 



It is hardly necessary to refer to the part bees play in the 

 garden, and I will pass on to the consideration of the ants. Are 

 these insects injurious or otherwise in the garden ? is a question 

 often asked. One naturally hesitates to condemn as injurious 

 insects possessed of such a high degree of intelligence as the 

 ants. Yet it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that, 

 besides making unsightly heaps in garden paths and elsewhere, 

 they give encouragement to the honey-dew-secreting aphides, 

 and these destroy not only the shoots, by sucking the very life 

 from them, but, by closing the pores by their sticky secretion 

 and their excrement, prevent the leaves from exercising their 

 proper functions. And on these scores alone ants, much as we 

 admire their industry, must be condemned. 



We now come to the parasitic Hy?nenoptcra, which are of 

 immense value to the gardener, though they seldom receive any 

 credit. Were it not, however, for these parasites the gardener's 

 troubles would be increased forty-fold. Every boy who has col- 

 lected butterflies is familiar with the ichneumoned larva? and 

 pupae which in certain seasons he meets with more than in others. 

 The ichneumon flies responsible for this, belong to the group now 



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