240 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



Sharp's account of the habits of 0. reniformis, drawn from 

 Fabre, is as follows : 



This insect (O. reniformis) provisions its cell 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 

 suspensory thread allows the egg to reach well down towards the bottom 

 of the cell. The caterpillars placed as food in the nest are all cuiled 

 up, each forming a ring approximately adapted to the caliber of the 

 cell. Fabre believes these caterpillars to be partly stupefied by stinging, 

 but the act has not been observed either by himself, Reaumur, or Du- 

 four. The first caterpillar is eaten by the wasp larva from its point of 

 suspension. After this meal has been made the larva is supposed to 

 undergo a change of skin; it then abandons the assistance of the sus- 

 pensory thread, taking up a position in the vacant chamber at the end 

 of the cell and drawing the caterpillars to itself one by one. This 

 arrangement permits the caterpillars to be consumed in the order in 

 which they were placed in the cell, so that the one that is the weakest 

 on account of its longer period of starvation is first devoured. Fabre 

 thinks that all the above points are essential to the successful develop- 

 ment of this wasp larva, the suspension protecting the egg and the 

 young larva from destruction by pressure or movement of the cater- 

 pillars, while the position of the larva when it leaves the thread and 

 takes its place on the floor of the cell ensures its consuming food in the 

 order of introduction. 



The species of Odynerus- are very subject to the attacks of 

 parasites. They are destroyed to an enormous extent by 

 Chrysididfe and by a fly, Argyromoeba sinnata. Mr. R. C. L. 

 Perkins observed 0. callosns forming their nests in a clay bank 

 and provisioning them with larvte, nearly all of which were 

 parasitized. 



Perkins-' has also observed some of the species of Hawaiian 

 Odynerus make a single mud cell very like the pot of an 

 Enmenes, but cylindrical instead of spherical. This little ves- 

 sel is often placed in a curled-up leaf, which also shelters both 

 spiders and young mollusks of the genus Achatinella. 0. punc- 

 tum, an East Indian species, according to Home, nests in holes 

 in door posts. 



Many of the genus Odynerus, according to Ashmead,- appro- 

 priate galleries and cells made by different bees, and old mud 

 daubers' nests. 0. errings, in Florida, was observed making 

 its nest in a door lock and in holes in a board fence. He 

 also reared it in cells constructed in old oak galls of 

 Amphibolips cinerea. Nine specimens of varying size were 

 reared from a single gall. 0. alio phaler alius has been bred 



