that nothing walks with aimless feet.
—tennyson.
in a corner of the garden, where the lilacs grew tall and broad, ruth was waiting for something to happen. she had a feeling, as she told belinda, that the most interesting things were coming, for the wind had been kissing her cheeks and ruffling her hair, just as though it was saying to her, “watch now. watch closely and listen.” then, too, the garden seemed to be alive. bees droning over the flowers; wasps collecting their tiny balls of wood pulp or marketing 149for their families; ants running here, there, and everywhere; not to mention many other winged creatures, some of whom were made after a fashion so queer that ruth, forgetting how rude it is to make personal remarks, deliberately asked of one:
“if you please, what is that long piece which seems to be growing from the tip of your body? it looks like mary’s stove hook when she sticks it in the lid.”
“that,” was the rather short answer, “is my abdomen, and it isn’t growing from the tip of my body, but from the top of my thorax. it seems to me you have never seen an ensign fly before.”
“no, i never did. please, what does ensign mean?”
“the dictionary will tell you that. all i know is some man got an idea that we carried our abdomens aloft like a flag or ensign, and so named us ensign fly. we are not flies, to begin with, but we have to keep any idiotic name they choose to tack on us. 150now take mrs. horntail, who wants——”
“thank you, i can speak for myself,” interrupted the horntail, sharply. she was quite handsome, with her black abdomen banded with yellow, her red and black head, yellow legs and horn, and dusky wings.
“i like my name. it means something, for i have a horn on my tail, and, what’s more, i use it. you should see me bore into solid green wood. none of your dead wood for me. i am not content with one hole either. i bore a great many, and in each i drop an egg, and when my babies hatch they get fat on the sap wood of the tree.”
“there seem to be such a lot of things to eat trees,” said ruth.
“perhaps there are, but i am interested in horntail babies only. they do their share of eating too, and when they grow sleepy they make cocoons of chips and silk from their own bodies, and go to sleep. after they wake they are changed into winged creatures, who naturally do not care to live 151in the tree any more. so they gnaw their way through the bark to the outside world and——”
“not if the woodpeckers and i can help it,” interrupted an ichneumon fly, keeping her antennæ in constant motion. she seemed to have long streamers floating from the back of her, and, altogether, ruth thought her even queerer looking than the ensign fly.
“those streamers are my ovipositor,” she explained to ruth. “the thing i lay eggs with, you understand. when i shut them together they form a sort of auger, with which i bore into a tree, way, way in, where the fat horntail babies are chewing the sap wood, and so ruining the tree. into their soft bodies i lay my eggs and when my children hatch they eat, not the tree, but the horntail baby. it is a wonderfully good riddance, and so the farmer and fruit grower consider us their friends and call us ‘trackers,’ because we find the hiding places of so many pests that harm the plants.”
“you can’t get my babies,” said mrs. saw fly. “i haven’t a horn, but i have a saw, and, though it will not bore into wood, it saws fine gashes in green leaves. of course i drop an egg in each gash, and soon there’s a swelling all around it, and when my children hatch they rock in gall nut cradles, and the sap which gathers there is their food.”
“talk about gall cradles,” said a gall fly, “my sisters and i are the fairies who make them to perfection. each of us has a different plant or tree which she prefers, and each follows her own fashion in making galls, and we puzzle even the wise men. have you ever seen the brown galls that grow on oaks?”
“why, of course,” answered ruth, glad the question was such an easy one.
“well that’s something, but i doubt if you have noticed the rosy coloured sponge that sometimes grows around the stem, or the mimic branch of currants drooping from 153the spot where the tree intended an acorn to be, or the tiny red apple-like ball on the leaf.”
ruth shook her head. “they must be very pretty,” she said.
“pretty? i should say so. they are all different kinds of galls too, and we gall flies make them. sometimes we sting the leaf, sometimes the twig, and sometimes the stem, and always just the kind of cradle we intended grows from it, and the egg we laid there hatched into a baby grub, ready to eat the sap.”
“then you know about the one on the willow tree,” put in ruth. “the one the housefly told about. it grows like a pine cone, and is made by some one with a dreadfully long name.”
“that is something entirely different,” answered the gall fly. “we do not pretend to make all the galls, you understand. some are made by insects belonging to quite another order. the willow tree cone is one. you may always know ours from the fact that we make no door for the babies to come out, as other insects do. our babies make their own door when they are ready to leave their cradle. and now to show how much is in some names, i will tell you that those other gall insects are called gall gnats and belong to the order of flies, while we are called gall flies, and belong to the order hymenoptera.”
“oh!” cried ruth, clapping her hands. “now i know the kind of tera you belong to, hy-men-op-tera,” she repeated slowly. “please tell me just what it means.”
“no, i won’t,” was the ungracious answer. “i hate explanations.”
“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 155on 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 156bright-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.
“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. 157of 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.
