(Oriaiual Articles. 



ICHXEUMOXID.E * 



By S. D. Bairstow. 



CHAPTER I. 



Vun id V autre. 



" And I have seen a man 



In happy moods conversing with a fly ; 

 And as he 



Beheld its wondrous eye and plxunage fine. 

 From leaping scarce he kept, and perfect joy." 



"We are constantly in the habit of meeting with individuals who, in 

 the ordinary course of conversation, refer in an indifferent manner to 

 the various genera of that wide-spread and most important order, 

 Eyriienoptera. They term it abstruse. Xow this wholesale condemn- 

 ation of a grand study is scarcely fair criticism, yet we must allow 

 that from a certain point of view it is correct. But the fact of 

 abstruseness lies in the inadequate attention which scientists have 

 bestowed upon it. Youngsters appreciate books which are replete 

 with illustrations. Speculators and tradesmen place their money in 

 funds which yield the most certain amount of profit for the least 

 investment. Naturalists run after orders whose appearance and 

 general qualifications render them fascinating and untroublesome. 

 What can be better, they say, than to have a goodly cabinet of 

 gorgeous moths, of well-arranged birds' eggs, or stuffed animals ? 

 But if this method of argument and selection were to predominate, 

 Xature would degenerate into a plaything for infants, and natural 

 history would develop into unnatural nonsense. Trees do not extend 

 much unless by branching out. So, unless we strike out new paths 

 for ourselves, avoiding muddy tracks of worn-out roads, attacking 

 subjects least attacked, embracing studies neglected and perchance 

 ridiculed, we may not hope to obtain any merit for ourselves. With 

 this object in view I have taken up the pen, that, by offering a few 

 interesting facts in connection with the Ichieumonidce, others may be 

 induced to think with me that, instead of being a dry science and 

 obscure, it is really one of beauty, and intelligible, replete with life- 

 lessons and instruction of no ordinary quality. 



Nature is a compound of two immensely divergent systems — 

 generative and destructive. The latter, though at first sight an 

 K S., Vol. IV., Mat, 1879. 



* Bead before the Members of the Huddersfield Scientific Club, Feb. 14, 1879. 



