“I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Horntail. “I know all about it.” And as Ruth turned to her with grateful eyes she began:
“Hymenoptera means membrane wing, and that’s the kind we have, though some of our order have no wings at all. The others have four wings, the front pair being larger, with a fold along the hind edge, that catches on hooks on the front edge of the hind wings; so we really seem to have but one pair. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” nodded Ruth.
“Very well. We are divided into two sub-orders: stingers and borers. Our larvæ are called maggots. They are not like us, being white grubs, with round horny heads, pointed tails, six legs——”
“Here, here!” said the ichneumon fly, “that does well enough for your children, but you know perfectly well that the babies of the rest of us have no legs.”
“Yes, I know. Poor things! Legless children! How sad! Mrs. Saw Fly and I are the only exceptions.”
“And your children use their legs to no good purpose either,” said the ichneumon fly.
“My children need no legs. They never move from the spot where they are hatched until after they transform. Why should they? Their dinner is right there.”
“The same with mine,” added a little bright-coloured brachnoid. “I choose a nice fat caterpillar, or something like that, to lay my eggs in, and he always lasts until my babies are ready to spin their cocoons, which they do on his shell, or dried skin, or whatever you choose to call it. I know he himself is quite gone. It is a pretty sight to see them.”
The brachnoid herself was a pretty little thing and as she looked not unlike the ichneumon fly, only smaller, Ruth asked Mrs. Horntail if she were not a young ichneumon fly.