SEVERAL LITTLE WASPS 



to burrow in sand and to provision their nests with dip- 

 terous insects. He says also that according to Verhoeff 

 the species in this genus do not paralyze their prey by 

 stinging, as they are unable to do so on account of the 



NEST OF OXYBELUS 



rigidity of the abdomen, but that instead they crush the 

 thorax with the mandibles just beneath the wings, the 

 centre of the nervous ganglia. He found in one nest a 

 dozen flies, and all had the thorax crushed and were 

 dead. In the case of our wasp we do not know how the 

 flies were killed, but there was no crushing of the tho- 

 rax. The larva devoured, in all, ten flies. At the time of 

 its death it had probably finished the larval stage of its 



79 



