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BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS . 
to make their nests in heaps of stones, or similar localities, and these are the fiercest of their 
kind. Generally, the Humble Bees are quiet and inoffensive, even permitting their nest to be 
laid open and the cells extracted, without offering to molest the invader. The Orange- 
t ailed Humble Bee, however, is large and fierce ; and possessing a powerful sting, with a 
very large poison-gland, becomes no despicable foe to those who offend it, or whom it chooses 
to consider as foes. 
The nests of the Humble Bees are not permanent like those of the hive bee, but perish 
during the winter, the only survivors being a few females, who are destined to found fresh 
colonies in the succeeding year. 
Another species, the Banded Bee, is so greatly in use in Egypt, and is fed by being 
placed on board of barges, and transported down the Nile, so as to insure a bountiful supply 
of honey. The owners of the hives pay a small sum to the owners of the boats, and, in return, 
their bees are carried along the fertile stream during the honey season, and afterwards 
returned with full combs. Payment is mostly in kind, thus insuring the proper fulfilment of 
the compact. 
For want of space, we are compelled to pass by many interesting Hymenoptera, such as 
the Leaf-cutter Bees, the Wood-borers, and the Mason Bees, each of which creatures would 
demand more space than can be given to the whole of the insects. 
STREPSIPTERA. 
A very small, but very remarkable order now comes before our notice — the Steepstptera, 
comprising insects of very minute proportions, all of which are parasitic upon the bodies of 
different bees and wasps, five, and even six, having been discovered within a single wasp. 
Their presence may generally be discovered by the peculiar swollen aspect of the abdomen ; 
and, in many cases, the heads of the parasites may be seen protruding from between the 
segments. 
The name Strepsiptera signifies, literally, twisted wings, and is given to these creatures 
because the front pair of wings are transformed into short and twisted appendages, quite use- 
less for flight or for defending the second pair of wings. These are almost disproportionately 
large, membranous, and with a kind of milky look as the insect flies through the air. The 
eye is composed of a very few lenses, in some species only fifteen on each side, two or three 
thousand being the ordinary average among insects. The antenme are of a remarkable form, 
branched and forked like the horns of a stag. The thorax is enormously large, and the abdo- 
men of very small size ; but, as the creature does not appear to take food during its life in the 
perfect state, this is of little moment. Curiously enough, the larvae of these insects are them- 
selves subject to internal parasites ; and it is very possible, that they, in their turn, may be 
infested by other creatures less than itself, and equally disagreeable. 
BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS; LEPIDOPTERA, 
We now come to an order in which are included the most beautiful of all insects, namely, 
the Butterflies and Moths. On account of the feather-like scales with which their wings are 
covered, and to which the exquisite coloring is due, they are technically called, Lepidoptera, 
or scale- winged insects. 
The wings are four in number, and it is occasionally found that the two pairs are con- 
nected together by a strong brittle in one, and a hook-like appendage in the other, so that the 
