A WASP THAT PROVISIONS ITS NEST WITH QUEEN ANTS 375 



Albuquerque, New Mexico, waiting for delayed mail, I noticed 

 one day beside a concrete walk that bordered a vacant lot in 

 that city a throng of large red ants which resembled Pogono- 

 myrmex occidentalis. The bunch was seething with excitement, 

 and stragglers were continually coming and going. As I watched 

 I noticed a small quadrate -headed wasp drop from the upper air 

 to the hard-trodden soil, alighting without previous reconnoi- 

 tering. She stood perfectly motionless, not even dressing herself 

 after the manner of her kind when idle. Presently an ant hur- 

 ried by, busy about nothing, as usual, when instantly the wasp 

 gave chase. The ant dodged and doubled as it fled, but the 

 wasp overtook and seized it after a very brief and intensely 

 active resistance, for a Pogonomyrmex is by no means a helpless 

 infant in a skirmish. The wasp and its riotous victim rose 

 heavily into the air and ascended at a sharp angle of flight, 

 until they were lost in the blue of the sky'. During the next 

 few minutes I saw the same performance repeated again and 

 again, with variations, until dozens of the ants had disappeared 

 heavenward with the predatory wasps. 



" So intent were the wasps on this work that they seemed 

 not in the least disturbed by my presence, and I managed to 

 secure a number of both wasps and ants by taking quick advan- 

 tage of the struggle always incident to the moment of capture. 



" Occasionally an ant, when pursued, would dodge around a 

 blade of grass or rush beneath some welcome shelter and elude 

 its hunter, but this happened in only a few cases. So swift and 

 certain were the motions of the wasps that even with a vantage 

 of six inches or more an ant once followed was almost certainly 

 doomed. The wasps never, so far as I observed, assisted them- 

 selves with their wings to gain speed, but played fair with their 

 victims and ran them down. The struggle generally lasted a 

 second or two on the ground, and, as I have said, appeared to 

 be continued fiercely in the air, judging from the frenzied actions 

 of the two as they rose aloft." Ainslee mentions another, pos- 

 sibly undescribed species of Aphilanthops which he took at the 

 same time preying on the same ants. Specimens of these, sent 

 me for identification, proved to belong to the large, coarsely 

 sculptured form of agricultural ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus F. 

 Smith subsp. rugosus Emery, which makes extensive clearings 

 in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. Although not ex- 



