208 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



hole being always left open when the insect was afield. Catch- 

 ing the two wasps, I endeavored to dig out their nests. This 

 proved to be a difficult task, owing to the sandy soil and to a 

 severe shower which came up. The nest aperture was not 

 neat, and the shaft sloping. The latter I soon lost, but a little 

 later succeeded in running across several cells an inch or two 

 beneath the surface, in firm, moist sand, quite warm in the 

 afternoon sun. One of these chambers contained about six 

 bugs, another five, and in all I obtained about thirty-four 

 Hemiptera from this nest. The cells were at least six in num- 

 ber, rather large and well packed with victims, upon one of 

 which was a half-grown wasp larva transversely arranged 

 with its mouth parts in the skin immediately back of one of 

 the fore coxse. 



The Peckhams (Wasps Social and Solitary, p. 95-6) found 

 PI. peckhami building her nest in the stems of raspberry 

 bushes, partitioning its cells with earthen granules, which are 

 later used by the larvse in forming the case of the cocoon. As 

 many as nine cells were found in one nest of this insect. It 

 provisions the cells with immature bugs of the genus Pamera 

 (Lygasidas). 



XiteHopsis inerme Cresson. (Fig. 119, egg in ^itti.) 

 Although this dusky little insect was not uncommon in cer- 

 tain localities, very little could be ascertained about its habits. 

 Specimens were taken at Rush Center, Rush county, June 19, 

 1912, flying low and quite swiftly over hard, sparsely vegetated 

 ground. They alighted but rarely. At Hays, Ellis county, 

 about .July 18, 1912, I located an inerme burrow in a small 

 area of bare clayey soil. When I arrived on the scene of action 

 she had already stored her nest and was filling the same with 

 pellets of earth. With these she at first descended out of sight, 

 but as the hole was being rapidly filled, she was soon exposed 

 to view. She worked with great rapidity, flying to and fro 

 a distance of a foot or less, selecting bits of earth. Fearing to 

 lose her, she was netted before her work was completed. 



The tunnel was neat and round, almost vertical, one and one- 

 half inches long, and cohesively silk-lined for about half its 

 length. I suspect its original proprietor must have been a 

 spider. The bottom of the hole was not enlarged into a cell, 

 but perpendicularly filled with five immature green Hemipter?. 

 of the family Capsidse. One of these (fig. 119) had a large, 



