STINGING FOUR-WINGED INSECTS 
307 
fly hurled to the ground by a mason-bee which 
had built her nest in a hole in a wall. The fly 
rolled herself up into a ball, when the bee bit off 
her wings, and then flew away. But as soon as 
she was gone the wingless fly stretched herself 
out again, and climbed up the wall to the bee’s 
nest to deposit her eggs. 
The group of stinging insects begins with 
the Ants, which are probably the most intelligent 
animals now living in the world. Different species, 
however, differ very much in their manners and 
customs, and in the grade of civilisation to which 
they have attained. Some of the more industrious 
among them keep other insects as cattle, and even 
as pets ; others harvest grain, while a few species 
cultivate grain for their own use ; and others make 
large mushroom-beds of comminuted leaves, and 
thus do great harm to cultivated trees in many 
parts of tropical America. When the industrious 
ants are not too busy, they sometimes indulge in 
sports and pastimes. But there are some species 
which live in idle communities. Such ants are only 
energetic as marauders, and are so degraded that 
they cannot even feed themselves, and starve to 
death if they are deprived of the services of their 
black slaves, which have been carried off as pupae 
by the others in piratical raids, and brought up by other slaves, which do all the work in the 
nests of their captors. 
Quitting the Ants, we arrive at a rather extensive series of insects of moderate or con- 
siderable size, and with very spiny legs, called Burrowing-wasps. They are brightly coloured, 
active insects, and generally dig holes in the ground, which they provision with caterpillars, 
grasshoppers, or spiders, which they paralyse with their stings, and leave in a moribund condition 
to form the food of their progeny. They are generally winged in both sexes, but in one family 
the females are stout and very hairy, and look like large hairy ants, while the males are slender 
winged insects, very unlike their partners. In the burrowing-wasps the front of the thorax, 
or second division of the body, is usually transverse, and often narrow; but in the True Wasps 
it bends back to the wings. Among these latter it is only the small group of the SOCIAL 
Wasps which are gregarious, and among which we find workers as well as males and females. 
The largest of the British wasps is the HORNET; but there are several much larger species in 
the East Indies, some of which are black and yellow, like the Chinese Mandarin-wasp, the 
largest of all, which often measures 2 inches across the 
wings. Others are black, w'ith one large reddish band on 
the abdomen. Their nests, which they construct of a kind 
of paper, are formed in a hole in the ground, in a 
hollow tree, or in a bush, or under the eaves of a house. 
A nest is commenced by a single female which has survived 
the winter, and is afterwards enlarged by the exertions of 
her progeny. 
The last group in this order are the Bees. They 
may generally be easily recognised by their shaggy bodies 
and legs. As with the Wasps, most species are solitary, 
or live in very small communities. Some few are smooth, 
Vhotos by P, Dando^ F.Z.S^ 
RUBY-TAILED WOOD-ANT 
FLY 
Generally of a hfilliant The largest species 
metallic green or blue found in Britain 
ICHNEUMON-FLY 
One of the largest species of a 'very extensi've group of para^ 
side insects 
