“Young ichneumon?” repeated Mrs. Horntail. “Whoever heard of such a thing? A young ichneumon is as large as an old one. None of us insects grow after we leave our cocoons. When we are what you mean by young—babies, in other words—we are different. I thought you had learned that before now. Haven’t you had larvæ and pupæ explained to you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ruth, “but I had forgotten. Of course you are different when you are first hatched, and then you get wings, while you sleep, but I thought maybe you grew even after you had wings.”
“Some of the grasshopper tribe do that, and spiders are hatched little spiders and grow bigger as they grow older, but we do no such thing. Besides, as you heard a while ago, an ichneumon baby is legless, absolutely legless, and homely. Well, I think the homeliest thing that lives, but then what can you expect with such a mother?”
“I don’t think she is so awfully homely,” said Ruth. “She is odd-looking, and—and——”
“Odd-looking?” repeated Mrs. Horntail. “You should see her drilling a hole and laying her eggs. If she doesn’t cut a figure, I don’t know one. With her abdomen all in a hump, her wings sticking straight up, and her antennæ standing out in front, not to mention the ridiculous loop she makes with the ovipositor, she certainly is a sight.”
“But I find the horntail babies,” said the ichneumon fly, quite undisturbed, “and that is the important thing. I wonder if this meeting is over?”
“I hope so,” answered Mrs. Horntail. “It is not a proper meeting at all. If I had the regulating of it, I would make some of these creatures behave. See that ant on the pebble over there. She is making faces, actually making faces.”
“I am not making faces,” answered the ant. “I am getting ready to talk, and I haven’t had a chance.”
She was little and brown, and scarcely an eighth of an inch long, but she looked quite important as she prepared to address the audience.
