152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



with etlier or chloroform, and the inhabitants can thus be stifled. 

 Or stand l/j' the nest and net the insects as they go to or from the 

 hole. Little or nothing is known about these interesting insects in 

 this country, and persons who will spend the time can find out 

 much that is new to their history. The following genera have no 

 workers : 



The common brown Polistes builds an exposed nest, consisting 

 of few or many cells ari'auged in one tier, and attached to leaves 

 and twigs by a short pedicel. 



The solitary wasps, Odynei^us and Eumenes, build nests of sand 

 glued together and hidden in cavities, hollow branches, &c., and 

 they store them with great numbers of caterpillars, flies, larvae of 

 beetles, and spiders. Thus it seiems that the larvae of the social 

 wasps are daily fed with sweets by the workers, while those of the 

 solitary species, which have no workers, have a store of insect- 

 food laid up for them by the female. 



The following families are truly fossorial sand-diggers, making 

 their holes in sunny paths, &c., of which the ants are the most 

 familiar examples. Their ovipositor is adapted for stinging, and by 

 the poison conveyed into the wound, for benumbing their victims, 

 which live for a long time half alive, for the larvae to feed upon. 



" Although there is much general similarity in the habits of the 

 truly fossorial species, there is considerable diversity in the details 

 of their proceedings : thus, whilst Oxyhelus conveys its prey by 

 means of its hind legs, Pominlus and AmmopMJa walk backwards, 

 dragging it with their mandibles. ' Aslala, Tachyles, Fsen, Crabro, 

 MellinuH and Cerceris fly bodily and directly forward with it in 

 their mandibles, assisted by their forelegs.' Shuckard. From my 

 own observations each species appears ordinarily to confine itself 

 to its own particular prey. Instances are on record, however, in 

 which considerable diversity in the prey of the same species hus 

 been observed ; this probably arose from the female not being 

 able to discover her legitimate prey ; thus Serville and Saint 

 Fargeau state that Bembex rontrata indifferently collects the species 

 of EridaliH, Slratiomys, and the larger Muscidae ; but it may be 

 regarded as the ordinary rule that each species confines itself to its 

 peculiar prey : thus, numbers of the same species of fly or larva 

 are found in the same cell, although this must sometimes be a mat- 

 ter of diflSculty." * * * " The prey is moreover very various, 

 comprising insects of nearly every order ; the Coleoptera, Hem- 



