190 



MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



she threw down her prize. 1 The golden- wasp tribe also 

 ( Chrysididce), all of which I suspect to be parasitic insects, 

 roll themselves up, as I have often observed, into a little ball 

 when alarmed, and can thus secure themselves — the upper 

 surface of the body being remarkably hard, and impenetrable 

 to their weapons — from the stings of those Hymenoptera 

 whose nests they enter with the view of depositing their eggs 

 in their offspring. Latreille noticed this attitude in Parnopes 

 carnea, which, he tells us, Bembex rostrata pursues, though it 

 attacks no other similar insect, with great fury ; and, seizing 

 it with its feet, attempts to dispatch it with its sting, from 

 which it thus secures itself. 2 M. Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, 

 to whom entomology is indebted for so many new facts relative 

 to the manners of hymenopterous insects, has given us a 

 striking account of a contest between the art of one of these 

 parasites {Hedyehrum regium) and the courage of one of the 

 mason-bees, in endeavouring to defend its nest from its attack. 

 The mason-bee had partly finished one of her cells, and flown 

 away to collect a store of pollen and honey. During her 

 absence the female parasitic Hedyehrum, after having examined 

 this cell by entering it head foremost, came out again, and 

 walking backwards, had begun to introduce the posterior 

 part of her body into it, preparatory to depositing an egg, 

 when the mason-bee arriving laden with her pollen-paste 

 threw herself upon her enemy, which, availing herself of the 

 means of defence above adverted to, rolled herself up into a 

 compact ball, with nothing but the wings exposed, and 

 equally invulnerable to the sting or mandibles of her assailant. 

 In one point, however, our little defender of her domicile saw 

 that her insidious foe was accessible ; and, accordingly, with 

 her mandibles cut off her four wings, and let her fall to the 

 ground, and then entering her cell with a sort of inquietude, 

 deposited her store of food, and flew to the fields for a fresh 

 supply; but scarcely was she gone before the Hedyehrum, 

 unrolling herself, and faithful to her instinct and her object, 

 though deprived of her wings, crept up the wall directly to 

 the cell from whence she had been precipitated, and quietly 



1 Hill's Swamm. i. 174. 



2 Ann. du Mas. 1810, 5. 



