ICHIDO, e'che'da, the private name of Hitotsubashi, leader of the anti-foreign party in Japan and the •last of the Tycoons.° See Hrrarstniasitt.
nc-nii'mOn, the name of a large family (Ichneumonida) of insects of the order Hymenoptera. As the swies of this family are very numerous (more 1,100 genera have been described) so their manners are extremely diversified; but, in the general outlines of their character, they all agree, par ticularly in their depredations among the insect tribes. In some the female has the ovipositor in the form of a boring instrument, with which she is capable of perforating the hardest wood. The larva of wasps are the devoted prey of these insects, who no sooner discover one of their nests than they perforate the material of which it is constructed, and deposit their within it. Others glue their ova to the eggs of a caterpillar, while others again penetrate through it and lay their eggs in its body. In
all these cases the young, as soon as they are hatched, prey on the caterpillar or larva, with out, however, destroying it at once, as upon the life of its victim that of the spoiler appears to depend. The caterpillar, in fact, seems healthy until• the larva of the ichneumon have bored through its skin, have spun their cocoons on its surface and entered the chrysalis state. These carnivorous insects are of various sizes; some are so small that the aphis, or plant-louse, serves as a cradle for their young; others again, from their size and strength, are for midable even to spiders, destroying them with their stings. They are, as a whole, highly bene ficial to humanity, as a large part of their prey consists of insects which are injurious to crops and valuable vegetation. Consult Howard, 'The Insect (New York 1901).