252 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, *I2 



its elongate egg so that its progeny would have every advantage 

 of developing successfully in being supplied with the freshest 

 food. The following quotation from the Cambridge Natural 

 History, VI, Insects, pt. 2, p. 75, relates to Fabre's observa- 

 tions on Odynerus reniformis and shows the remarkable in- 

 stinct of the insect in safeguarding its egg: "This insect pro- 

 visions its cells with small caterpillars to the number of twenty 

 or upwards. The egg is deposited before the nest is stocked 

 with food; it is suspended in such a manner that the suspen- 

 sory thread allows the egg to reach well down towards the bot- 

 tom of the cell." By this arrangement there is no danger of the 

 egg being crushed in the mass of caterpillars which may not 

 be completely deprived of motion, which Fabre states is the 

 case in a related genus (Eumenes). 



At 10 A. M. we dug out the burrow made by W. This wasp 

 was much the faster worker. Fig. 5, PI. XIV, shows its tube 

 which was i 1-30 inch tall. We had already filled the cell with 

 nine larvae and had oviposited some time previously, as shown 

 by the small wasp grub within. Some of the imprisoned larvae 

 were capable of considerable activity. The cell was closed with 

 a wad of packed soil 1-5 inch thick. 



It is possible that these two 0. annul atus would have added 

 other cells to their burrows, inasmuch as one such branched 

 hole was located in Scott County. It stands to reason, how- 

 ever, that Odynerus annulatus must store several cells, and lay 

 more than one egg to be able to propagate its species. 



A closely related species, O. gcminus Cress, to which we shall 

 now refer, makes a several-celled tunnel but does not construct 

 a tube to the aperture. Sharp, in the Cambridge Natural His- 

 tory VI, Insects, p. 74, in speaking of Odynerus mentions the 

 fact that several species of the sub-genus Hoplopus "have the 

 remarkable habit of constructing burrows in sandy ground and 

 forming at their entry a curvate, freely projecting tube, placed 

 at right angles to the main burrow, and formed of the grains 

 of sand brought out by the insect during excavation and ce- 

 mented together." In several localities we noticed on rare oc- 

 casions much narrower clay tubes than those of Odynerus an- 



