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most familiar examples of this singular process, which you may observe in the autumn. When you perceive a caterpillar of this kind creeping into some corner, in order to undergo its own change into a chrysalis, watch it, and in the space of a day or two, it is likely you will see a numerous tribe of small maggots emerging from it, and immediately proceeding to envelope themselves in distinct yellow silken cases, forming one group round the caterpillar. Other small species of Jchneunidn pierce the skins of newly changed chrysalids, butterflies, and moths, in which their larvae remain during their incomplete state, Others again are so very small, that the female deposits a single egg in the eggs of moths and other insects. However formidable this race may be to the caterpillars, they are very useful to man, by destroying multitudes of the plant.-lice and other insects; and in some seasons, when the increase of caterpillars has been very injurious, these cannibal insects have multiplied in pro portion. One of their characteristics in the fly state, is the continual agitation of their antenme; and another, that the abdomen is generally joined to the body, by a stalk or pedicle.
The next genus, Spliex, or Savage, has an instinct in one respect directly opposite to that
of
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