on the 21st of July at a quarter past seven in the evening we were passing around among the currant and gooseberry bushes watching the manipulations of a few of those well known foes, the larva of Nematus ventricosus. They were feeding away voraciously with perennial appetites, when a disturber of their peace appeared among them in them of a small black ichneumon fly which fastened itself on the body of one of their number, and began to deposit its eggs by means of a sharp ovipositor, dexterously thrust through the skin of its victim, whose jerks and writhings while indicating a very uneasy state, failed to shake off the tormontor.