130 
IIYMENOPTERA. 
evidence of its having cast its skin three times whilst 
under observation, and from the analogy of C. bidentata , 
I believe it had done so four times altogether. The 
stored larvre had all been devoured, their heads alone 
remaining, just as when eaten by the Wasp grub. The 
larva then spun a cocoon, which I knew to be typical of 
C. ignita . The rapidity with which it had fed up was 
extraordinary. None of my neglecta or bidentata fed 
up so rapidly; but the warm sunny wall on which 
parietum had built her nest may partly account for 
this, my larvae of the other two species having been 
kept comparatively cool.” 
The deposition of the eggs by these insect Cuckoos 
is not always allowed to take place by the rightful 
occupants of the cells without a contest. Westwood 
tells us, on the authority of a French Naturalist, an 
instance in which a Mason Bee, returning to its nearly 
finished cell, laden with pollen paste, found a Iledy- 
clirum (one of the Chrysididae) in its nest, and attacked 
it with its jaws : the parasite immediately rolled itself 
into a ball, so that the Bee could not hurt it; however, 
it bit off its four wings which were exposed, rolled it to 
the ground, and then deposited its load in the cell and 
flew away, whereupon the Hedychrum, now wingless, 
had the persevering instinct to crawl up the wall to the 
nest, and there quietly deposit its egg, which it placed 
between the pollen paste and the w r all of the cell, which 
prevented the Mason Bee from seeing it. 
The Aculeate Hymenoptera are those insects which 
are furnished with a sting, which is connected with a 
poison gland ; Ants, Wasps, and Bees are well-known 
representatives of this section. This section is divided 
