HABITS OF SOME HYMEXOPTERA. 
15 
to the eggs of other insects, which they puncture, and the little 
creatures produced from the latter find a sufficient quantity of food 
to supply all their wants within the larger eggs they occupy. The 
ruby-tails {Chrysididce) and the cuckoo-bees {HylcBiis, Sphecodes, 
Nomada, Melecta^ Epeolus, Ccelioxys^ and Stelis) lay their eggs in 
the provisioned nests of other insects, whose young are robbed 
of their food by the earlier-hatched intruders, and are conse¬ 
quently starved to death. The wood-wasps ( CrabronidcB), and 
numerous kinds of sand-wasps {^Larradce, Bhnhicidce^ Sphegidce, 
Pompilidce, and Scoliadce), mud-wasps {Pelopceus), the stinging 
velvet-ants {MutilladcB), (Plate I. Fig. 3, Mutilla coccinea,) and the 
solitary wasps {^Odynerus and Eumenes), are predaceous in their 
habits, and provision their nests with other insects, which serve for 
food to their young. 
The food of ants consists of animal and vegetable juices; and 
though these industrious little animals sometimes prove troublesome 
by their fondness for sweets, yet, as they seize and destroy many 
insects also, their occasional trespasses may well be forgiven. Even 
the proverbially irritable paper-making wasps and hornets {Polistes 
and Vespa) are not without their use in the economy of nature; 
for they feed their tender offspring not only with vegetable juices, 
but with the softer parts of other insects, great numbers of which 
they seize and destroy for this purpose. The solitary and social 
bees {Andrenadce and Apidce) live wholly on the honey and pollen 
of flowers, and feed their young with a mixture of the same, called 
bee-bread. 
Various kinds of bees are domesticated for the sake of their 
stores of wax and honey, and are thus made to contribute directly 
to the comfort and convenience of man, in return for the care and 
attention afforded them. Honey and wax are also obtained 
from several species of wild bees {Melipona. Trigona, and Tetra- 
gona), essentially different from the domesticated kinds. While 
bees and other hymenopterous insects seek only the gratification of 
their own inclinations, in their frequent visits to flowers, they carry 
on their bodies the yellow dust or pollen from one blossom to 
another, and scatter it over the ])arts prepared to receive and be 
fertilized by it, whereby they render an important service to 
vegetation. 
