take little interest in the disreputable
actions of his associates. Nothing could move him or entice him away
from his convivial employment. But, alas! his folly soon found him out,
for, on happening to look again, I observed he had found a new
acquaintance--a hornet that had evidently been long desirous of meeting
him. One by one I saw my butterfly's dismembered wings fall to the
grassy jungle below, while a big black wasp proceeded to enjoy the
collected sweets which he had doubtless observed were being so carefully
stored away there in the shady retreat.

[Illustration]

And now my pretty black butterfly--no, it proved to be the little
day-flying grape-vine-moth, the eight-spotted black _Alypia_--appeared
from some unseen source, and spun his crapy white-streaked halo among
the leaves, at length settling among a little company of flies. Softly
behind him creeps a brown wasp (_Polistes_), with his mouth watering,
while from the opposite quarter a steel-blue mud-wasp approaches, with
apparently similar designs. Neither invader sees the other.
Simultaneously, as though answering to a signal, the two make a dash at
the moth; but he is too quick for them. In a twinkling he is off in his
pretty halo again, while the two disappointed contestants have clinched,
and with stings and jaws vigorously plying fall to the jungle below, and
seek satisfaction in mortal combat.

Here is a pretty little yellow and black banded flower-fly, which is
having a quiet little picnic all by himself on a bed of yarrow bloom
close by. But a big black paper-hornet has suddenly seen an attraction
hither also, and is soon creeping stealthily among the blossoms with a
wild and hungry look. But the hornets seemed to waste their time on the
flies. Seemingly confident in their less complicated wing machinery, the
two-winged fly rarely sought escape until within very close range of his
enemy, and his resources never seemed to disappoint him at the critical
moment.

Among the insect assemblage was a large number of ants of all kinds and
sizes, the common large black species being conspicuous. Here is one
creeping and sipping along a grass stem. A small digger-wasp likes this
grass stem too, but instead of exchanging courtesies on the subject, the
wasp proceeds to bite the ant's head off without ceremony, and continues
sipping at the stem as though decapitation were a mere casual incident
in its daily walk.

On the same stem a big blowfly has alight