160 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



When the operation was nearly completed we caught the 

 wasp and opened the nest. The egg, which was placed upon 

 one side of the abdomen of the spider, did not develop, because 

 its intended victim, not being held in place by the earth of the 

 nest, knocked it off on the second day. We transplanted it to 

 the abdomen of an E. striw which had been more thoroughly 

 paralyzed by quinquenotatus, but in vain. 



Among the French wasps the yellow-winged Sphew first 

 makes her nest and then captures her prey, which is so small 

 that she can carry it easily. The Langiiedocien species on the other 

 hand takes a very hea^^y victim and digs her hole near the place 

 of capture, wherever that may be. How much better is this 

 adjustment than the one that we see among our PompiUdae, 

 where quinquenotatus first catches her strioo which is so small 

 that she can easily fly with it, and leaves it exposed to many 

 dangers during the time that she is excavating its resting place, 

 while scelestus digs her nest and then goes far away to capture 

 the great spider, which she must drag painfully along for hours 

 before she can bring it home. 



The victim of P. scelestus. 



When we picked up the spider that had been stung by our 

 first example of P. scelestus, at a little after one o'clock in the 

 afternoon, it was limp and appeared to be dead. A careful ex- 

 amination resulted in the same verdict. "No stimulation brought 

 a response. At five o'clock, however, we succeeded in getting 

 a slight quiver of the tarsi, when stimulating the legs at the ar- 

 ticulation of the femur and trochanter. At nine o'clock on the 

 following morning, August eighteenth, the spider, which was 

 a full grown female, had almost recovered; she was so active 

 that when she was touched with the forceps she ran several 

 steps, and when the instrument was brought in front of her 

 she seized it with her falces and held it so firmly that she could 

 be lifted up and dragged about. She could co-ordinate her 

 movements, since she brushed off anything that touched her by 

 means of her tarsi. She was unable to see, since when threat- 



