FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. 
91 
length of a pearoh, she laid down, and then takes 
out a little pellet of earth, with which she had 
stopped the mouth of a small hole like a worm- 
hole ; then she goes down into it, and staying a 
very little while, comes up again and draws the 
eruca down with her into the hole, and there 
leaves her ; and afterwards not ouly stops, but 
fills up the hole, sometimes carrying in little clods, 
and sometimes scraping dust with her feet, and 
throwing backward into the hole, and going down 
after herself to ram it close. 
“ Once or twice she flew up into a pine-tree, 
which grew just over her hole, perhaps to fetch 
cement. When the hole was full and even with 
the superficies of the ground about it, she draws 
two pine-tree leaves and lays them near the mouth 
of the hole, and flies away. 
Not taking notice that she came any more in 
three or four days, we digged for the caterpillar, 
and found it pretty deep. I put it into a box, 
expecting it would have produced an ichneumon, 
but it died away and nothing came of it. We 
lately observed a sort of ichneumon, or rather 
vespse, which prey upon several sorts of flyes ; 
when they fly with them, they hold them by the 
head and carry them under their .bellies. These 
make holes a great depth in the ground, in which 
they lay their young ones, and feed them with 
the flies they catch, creeping backwards into the 
ground, and drawing the flies after them. I sus- 
pect they at first lay their eggs in the very body 
of a fly, but one fly being not enough to bring the 
