THE HYMENOPTERA
THE
HYMENOPTERA
OF
SUFFOLK.
B Y CLAUDE MORLEY, F . E . S . , F . G . S . ,
PORTIO
17
OF SUFFOLK.
F.Z.S.
PRIMA.
IT is no exaggeration to aver that this vast Order of Insects constitutes the most influential group of Animals of the whole world. They regulate the population of the Earth by means of their basic control of the Balance of Nature. Hence to them we owe more than most folk would be Willing to allow. The majority of Hymenoptera are parasites : where our agriculturists kill thousands of noxious insects, the Hymenoptera slay their tens of thousands, and without them man's efforts would be futile. Without their restriction upon phytophagous caterpillars, all trees would very soon be defoliated and every pasture bare soil: hence ruminants could not exist and carnivores, from weasels to men, could get no meat. Nor, indeed, could we so much as breathe without the oxygen whereof botanical exstirpation would rob our atmosphere.—Let us, then, accord more study to the Hymenoptera than they have hitherto received : not tili quite recently have governments recognised the importance of breeding these parasites in captivity and liberating them to destroy, in Nature's own way, caterpillars devouring valuable Vegetation. All the following Ichneumonids and Braconids are parasitic, as also are the vast majority of Chalcids, Proctotrypids and some Cynipids; but most Cynipids and a few Chalcids subsist upon the composition of the galls they cause, by irritating sap, on plants; the Tenthredinidac are totally and the Aculeates mainly phytophagous, while the rest of Aculeates and all Chrysids live endemically upon the former.—In the present Order of Insects, Suffolk has been peculiarly fully worked (the venerable William Kirby published in Ipswich during 1802 his book on Bees, which laid firm the basis of their Classification throughout the woild), with the result that we are enabled to here instance well over two thousand different kinds: nor is it any slur that our local Chalcididae fall so far short of the British total, for no County can boast more than we (Notts possesses but 32, the Isle of Wight 35); certainly the family is ubiquitous, but its species are practically unknown.