334 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
of its transformation begins to approach ; and then spinning 
a silken web, it continues fixed in its cell till the sun calls it 
from its dark abode the ensuing summer. 
The wasps of Europe are very mischievous, yet they are 
innocence itself when compared to those of the u epical cl i- 
mates, where all the insect tribes are not only numerous, but 
large, voracious, and formidable, lhose of the W est Indies 
are^ thicker, and twice as long as the common bee ; they are 
of a orey colour, striped with yellow, and armed with a veiy 
dangerous sting. They make their cells in the mannei of a 
honey-comb, itTwhich the young ones are hatched and bred. 
They generally hang their nests by threads, composed of 
the same substance with the cells, to the branches of tiees, 
and the eaves of houses. They are seen every where in 
great abundance, descending like fruit, particularly pears, 
of which shape they are, and as large as one’s head. The 
inside is divided into three round stories, full of cells, each 
hexagonal, like those of an honey-comb. In some of the 
islands, these insects are so very numerous, that their nests 
are stuck up in this manner, scarce two feet asunder, and 
the inhabitants are in continual apprehension from their 
accidental resentment. It sometimes happens, that no pre- 
caution can prevent their attacks, and the pain ot then 
sting is almost insupportable, lhoso who have felt it think 
it more terrible than even that of a scorpion ; the whole 
visage swells, and the features are so disfigured, that a poi- 
son is scarcely known by his most intimate acquaintance. 
The Ichneumon Fly. Every rank of insects, how vo- 
racious soever, have enemies that are terrible to them, and 
that revenge upon them the injuries done upon the rest or 
the animated creation. The wasp, as we have seen, is very 
troublesome to man, and very formidable to the insect 
tribe; but the ichneumon fly (of which there are many 
varieties) fears not the wasp itself : it enters its retreats, 
plunders its habitations, and takes possession of that ce 1 
tor its own young, which the wasp had laboriously bui t 
for a dearer posterity. . 
This fly receives its name from the little quadruped, 
which is found to be so destructive to the crocodile ; as it 
bears a strong similitude to its courage and rapacity ; but 
though there are many difierent kinds ot this insect, V et 
the most formidable, and that best known, is called the 
common ichneumon, with four wings, like the bee, a hmS, 
slender black body, and a three forked tail, consisting 
bristles ; the two outermost black, and the middlemost red- 
