Ichneumon_2. Gad Fly_384. Tipula_5. Gnat_8.Common Ant_7 Termes or, Ant of Africa (King) _8 Queen. Ant pregnant 2. Sabourer 10. Soldier.

tacks, and the pain of their sting is almost insupportable. Those who have felt it think it more terrible than even that of a scorpion; the whole visage swells, and the features are so disfigured that a person is scarcely known by his most intimate acquaintance.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the Ichneumon Fly.

EVERY rank of insects, how voracious soever, have enemies that are terrible to them, and that revenge upon them the injuries done upon the rest of the animated creation. The wasp, as we have seen, is very troublesome to man, and very formidable to the insect tribe; but the Ichneumon Fly (of which there are many varieties) fears not the wasp itself; it enters its retreats, plunders its habitations, and takes possession of that cell for its own young, which the wasp had laboriously built for a dearer posterity.

Though there are many different kinds of this insect, yet the most formidable, and that best known, is called the Common Ichneumon, with four wings, like the bee, a long slender black body, and a three-forked tail, consisting of bristles, the two outermost black, and the middlemost red. This fly receives its name from the little quadruped which is found to be so destructive to the crocodile, as it bears a strong similitude in its courage and rapacity.

Though this instrument is to all appearance slender and feeble, yet it is found to be a weapon of great force · and efficacy. There is scarcely any substance which it will not pierce, and indeed it is seldom seen but employed in penetration. This is the weapon of defence; this is employed in destroying its prey; and, still more, by this the animal deposits her eggs wherever she thinks

fit to lay them. As it is an instrument chiefly employed for this purpose, the male is unprovided with such a sting, while the female uses it with great force and dexterity, brandishing it when caught from side to side, and very often wounding those who thought they held her with the greatest security.

All the flies of this tribe are produced in the same manner, and owe their birth to the destruction of some other insect, within whose body they have been deposited, and upon whose vitals they have preyed, till they came to maturity. There is no insect whatever which they will not attack, in order to leave their fatal present in its body; the caterpillar, the gnat, and even the spider himself, so formidable to others, is often made the unwilling fosterer of this destructive progeny.

About the middle of summer, when other insects are found in great abundance, the ichneumon is seen flying busily about, and seeking proper objects upon whom to deposit its progeny. As there are various kinds of this fly, so they seem to have various appetites. Some are found to place their eggs within the aurelia of some nascent insect, others place them within the nest which the wasp had curiously contrived for its own young; and as both are produced at the same time, the young of the ichneumon not only devours the young wasp, but the whole supply of worms which the parent had carefully provided for its provision. But the greatest number of the ichneumon tribe are seen settling upon the back of the caterpillar, and darting, at different intervals, their stings into its body. At every dart they deposit an egg, while the wounded animal seems scarcely sensible of the injury it sustains. In this manner they leave from six to a dozen of their eggs within the fatty substance of the reptile's body, and then fly off to commit further depredations. In the mean time the caterpillar, thus irreparably injured, seems to feed as voraciously as before, does not abate of its usual activity, and, to all appearance, seems no way affected by the internal ene

mies that are preparing its destruction in their darksome abode. But they soon burst from their egg state, and begin to prey upon the substance of their prison. As they grow larger, they require a greater supply, till at last the animal by whose vitals they are supported, is no longer able to sustain them, but dies, its whole inside being almost eaten away. It often happens, however, that it survives their worm state, and then they change into a chrysalis, enclosed in the caterpillar's body till the time of their delivery approaches, when they burst their prisons, and fly away. The caterpillar, however, is irreparably destroyed; it never changes into a chrysalis, but dies shortly after, from the injuries it had sustained.

Such is the history of this fly, which though very terrible to the insect tribe, fails not to be of infinite service to mankind. The millions which it kills in a single summer are inconceivable; and without such a destroyer the fruits of the earth would only rise to furnish a banquet for the insect race, to the exclusion of all the nobler ranks of animated nature.

CHAPTER V.

Of the Ant.

THOUGH the number of two-winged flies be very great, and the naturalists have taken some pains to describe their characters and varieties, yet there is such a similitude in their forms and manners, that, in a work like this, one description must serve for all. We now, therefore, come to a species of four-winged insects, that are famous from all antiquity for their social and industrious habits, that are marked for their spirit of subordination, that are offered as a pattern of parsimony to the profuse, and of unremitting diligence to the sluggard.