90 
MEMOIR OF 
butterfly, (according to the usual course of 
nature,) should produce sometimes one, some- 
times two, or three, and sometimes a whole swarm 
of ichneumones. I have observed this anomalous' 
production in a great many sorts of caterpillars, 
both hairy and smooth ; in several sorts of mag- 
gots, and which is most strange, in one water 
insect. When there come many of these ichneu- 
mon maggots out of the body of the same cater- 
pillar, they weave all their thecas togethef into 
one bunch, which is sometimes wound with web 
about it just like a bag of spiders’ eggs; but I 
dare venture to answer Mr Lister’s tenth quaere, 
page 21772 of the Philosophical Transactions, 
negatively, that none of them feed on spiders’ 
eggs, but it is the similitude of those thecas con- 
globated together to the eggs of spiders, that hath 
occasioned this conjecture. One of the green 
caterpillars common on the heaths in the north, 
went so far on to her, natural change that she 
made herself up into a great theca, almost of the 
shape of a bottle, which was filled with a swarm 
of ichneumones. And I have observed, in one or 
two other sorts, that from the very aurelia itself 
hath come an ichneumon ; while it is very odd 
that the caterpillar, stung and impregnated by the 
ichneumons, should yet be so far unhurt and 
unconcerned as to make herself a theca, and to be 
turned into an aurelia. This year, being in com- 
pany with an ingenious neighbour, we observed 
one haling a large green caterpillar, much bigger 
than herself, which, after she had drawn the 
