WASPS. 177 



pilids. The more advanced students can distinguish 

 them by the following characteristic. In Sphegids 

 the pronotum or collar is not in contact with the 

 tegula (a little cup-like scale over the base of the 

 fore wing). (See Plate 21, Fig. 10 a. b.). In 

 Pompilids the pronotum and tegulse are in contact, 

 for the pronotum is prolonged backwards at the 

 sides to meet the tegulse. 



Mr. Froggatt, in "Friendly Insects," thus sums 

 tip the habits of sand wasps (Pompilidse and Sphe- 

 gidse). "In the sand wasps we have many large 

 black and yellow long-legged hunting wasps, that 

 flying over grass and herbage, capture small crickets, 

 locusts, grasshoppers, and even large cicadas, which 

 they drag or ride into the burrows they excavate in 

 the sandy soil. Where these wasps are plentiful. 

 they must keep down the number of small grass and 

 plant-eating Orthoptera (locusts, grasshoppers, 

 etc.)." 



The Sphegids, which we will now consider, are 

 all solitary in habit. 



Genus Ammophila. This wasp makes tunnels 

 in the ground. At the end of the tunnel is a little 

 room, and it is here that the food store is placed. 

 This species captures caterpillars ; one only is 

 needed if it is large, and several if small. 



Mr. T. McCarthy has given the following account 

 of Ammophila suspiciosa in the "Australian Na- 

 turalist" : "During a recent visit to the Government 

 Experimental Station at Hay nothing proved so in- 

 teresting as the nest-making habits of the Thread 

 Waisted Sand Digger Ammophila suspiciosa- The 



