NATURAL HISTORY. 
425 
A Polistes attacked by many specimens of a filamentous 
sphaeria was described by Felton in the Philosophical Trans¬ 
actions under the name of vespa crinita, which he regarded as 
a new species of hairy wasp, not being aware that it was a 
sphaeria. 
Several species of moths, both English and foreign, especi¬ 
ally from the Brazils, are found thus attacked ; ants also and 
curculionidae from St. Vincent’s, and the papa of the cicada 
(sphceria sobolifera). 
At the Bristol Association for the Cultivation of Science, 
held in August, 1836, a paper was read by J. B. Yates, Esq., on 
the vegetating wasp in the West Indies, in which the author 
was likewise of opinion, that the vegetating process commenced 
during the life of the insect; and, certainly, a careful exami¬ 
nation of these singular caterpillars favors the hypothesis. If 
this should be the case, it is an instance of a retrograde step 
in nature, when the insect, instead of rising to the higher order 
of the butterfly, and soaring to the skies, sinks into a plant, 
and remains attached to the soil in which it has buried itself. 
VEGETATING CATEBP1LLAKS. 
