26 Trans. 'Acad, of St. Louis 



stopped and deliberately turned it on her back with her 

 feet and resumed her march witli it with more ease and 

 speed. The facts that the stops were deliberate, and that 

 the caterpillar was riiifhted with lier feet on all three oc- 

 casions before she traveled on, show that this is not 

 merely instinctive or tropismic behavior, but actual use 

 of judgment or experience to gain her own convenience; 

 she tried to move it in the position in which she found it, 

 but after a short pull she found a bettor way and stopped 

 to put it into practice. Of course it is clear to anyone 

 how much more smoothly the rounded dorsal surface will 

 slide over the ground than any other part of the prey's 

 anatomy. 



The caterpillar was injured only slightly, wriggled 

 actively when I took it up, and responded to stimulus for 

 live days thereafter. Since this wasp was found nidifying 

 so late in the autumn, one wonders if it does not hiber- 

 nate as an adult. 



Notogonidea argentata Bve. This wasp was seen to fly 

 into a hole in a clay bank, with its prey under the 

 abdomen; she was captured as she emerged, and the bur- 

 row opened. This proved to be only a spider's hole, one- 

 half inch across and six inches deep, but at the bottom 

 was a cricket, Nemohiits fasciatus De Geer [A. N. Cau- 

 dell]. The cricket w^as very much alive but its powers 

 of locomotion were dead; however it could cling tightly 

 to my hand by its tarsi. Anothr wasp was caught in a 

 trap set for burying-beetles as early as June 12, 1917, 

 while others were out as late as October 20. 



Tachytes peptictus Say. [S. A. Rohwer]. In July, 

 1918, I noticed a species of green-eyed wasp performing 

 a sun-dance. These were astonishingly fleet of wing, and 

 could not be captured without a net; so, for lack of iden- 

 tification, no record was made of this occurrence. The 

 earth at that place was somewhat sandy and almost bare 

 of vegetation for an area about six feet square under the 

 spreading branches of an old cotton-wood tree. 



