Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/713

Rh having discovered a caterpillar or grub which her instinct informs her has not been previously attacked, at once proceeds to thrust her ovipositor into the writhing body of her victim, depositing one or more eggs, according to the size of the living food-supply. When hatched, the larvae devour and live upon their foster-parent, avoiding in a marvelous way the vital parts of their victim, whose life is most accurately timed to last until its young tormentors are full grown, and not beyond. At one time, we were led to believe in occasional instances of the instinct of female ichneumons being at fault, by observing them apparently ovipositing upon the dry shells of pupæ from which the butterflies had escaped. This, however, we subsequently found to be an erroneous idea, the fact of the matter being that the caterpillar upon which the parent ichneumon had laid her fatal egg had had time, before the full development of the young ichneumon grub, to turn to the pupal stage. What, then, we saw was the young ichneumon-fly just emerged from the dry pupal case, the contents of which it had first devoured in its own larval stage, then, itself turning to a pupa, it had lain, thus doubly incased, until, having broken forth a perfect fly, it rested upon its late prison, awaiting sufficient strength to come to its wings. What a wooden horse of Troy such a chrysalis would prove, if introduced into the breeding establishment of a collector!

Other members of the ichneumon tribe do not actually insert their eggs into the destined food-supply of their young; but, as it were, going deeper into calculation of future events, content themselves with laying them in close proximity to the eggs of some member of the tribe upon which it is their mission to prey.

There is an old saying:

 Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite 'em; Little fleas have smaller fleas, So on ad infinitum"—

which is very true, inasmuch as from the great humble-bee down to the tiniest corn-thrips—a mere speck of dust to the naked eye—all insects have their parasites, and generally their own special species of ichneumon, to prevent their over-increase and to preserve the due balance of nature. There is a species of longicorn beetle, found in Pennsylvania, which feeds upon the tender bark of young hickory-shoots. When laying-time arrives, the female, having deposited her eggs in cavities perforated in the bark, carefully cuts a groove, about onetenth of an inch wide and deep, round the shoot just below where her treasures lie. The object, or rather we suppose we ought to say the consequence, of this act is the withering and decay of the shoot, a provision for the sustenance of her young, which, when in their larval state, live upon dead wood! This remarkable insect is called the hickory-girder from the above-mentioned habit, which, we think, is one