TWO SPIDER HUNTERS. 55 



brutal, or the paralyzer cruel is to do a wrong to tlie whole race 

 of wasps. It may be that other species of 8 alius deal differ- 

 ently with their yictims, just as the French Pelopaei always kill 

 their spiders while ours often only paralyze, but S. cordens gives 

 a fatal thrust. 



At another time we saw one of these little wasps running 

 backward with a small Lycosid in her mandibles. She dropped 

 it repeatedly to rush about as though looking for something. 

 Soon she came to a small fresh looking hole which ran down 

 obliquely and into this she backed with the spider. Half an 

 hour later she came out and we then attempted to open the nest, 

 but the tunnel ran into a large cavity that had been filled by a 

 piece of decaying wood and we could not trace it. 



Aporus fasciatus Smith. 



This is a dark gray species and is less than half an inch in 

 length. (PL XIII., fig. 5.) We were working one day in the 

 melon field when we saw one of these little wasps going back- 

 ward and dragging a female of Maevia vittata which was much 

 larger than she was herseK. She twice left it on the ground 

 while she circled about for a moment, but soon carried it up 

 onto one of the large melon leaves and left it there while she 

 made a long and careful study of the locality, skimming close 

 to the ground in and out among the vines; at length she went 

 under a leaf that lay close to the ground and began to dig. After 

 her head was well down in the ground we broke off the leaf 

 that we might see her method of work. She went on for ten 

 minutes without noticing the change and then, without any 

 circling, flew off to visit her spider. When she tried to return 

 to her hole it was evident that some landmark was missing. 

 Again and again she zig-zagged from the spider to the nesting- 

 plac«, going by a sort of a path among the vines from leaf to 

 leaf and from blossom to blossom, but when she reached the 

 spot she did not recognize it. At last we laid the leaf back in its 

 place over the opening, when she at once went in and resumed 

 her work, keeping at it steadily for ten minutes longer. At 



