340 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



WASP STORING KATYKIDS IN A WELL 



By E. S. Tucker, Bureau of Entomology, U. 8. Dcpt. of Agric. 



Two years ago in August a correspondent at Osage City, Kansas, 

 sent me some specimens of a narrow-winged katydid, wliicli were 

 identified as Scudderia curvicauda De G., and in his letter he stated 

 that they had been drawn up in a bucket of water from a well 30 to 

 35 feet deep, where the insects were floating. A few days before these 

 bodies were taken he had observed a large black wasp in the act of 

 carrying one of the same kind of katydids into the well and saw the 

 wasp drag its prey into a cranny of the rocks, about a yard below the 

 surface of the ground. No definite description of the w^asp was given 

 further than that it was over an inch long and "slender-waisted. " 

 One or two torpid katydids were seen lying on the very edge of rocks 

 in the wall near the spot where the above example had been stored 

 away, from which position any of the bodies might easily slip and fall 

 off into the water below. The number of bodies floating in the well 

 had been increasing during the week until twenty or thirty were vis- 

 ible. In the meantime some of them, probably a dozen specimens, 

 had been drawn up in buckets of water and thrown away. One of 

 these specimens evinced faint indications of life by movements of its 

 mouthparts. 



The question was asked if these bodies showed signs of having been 

 stung and if eggs had been laid upon them by the wasp. To prove 

 that the bodies were stung, the act of stinging must be witnessed, and 

 since the specimens had become partly macerated, no evidence of eggs 

 could be detected, though there remained no doubt, judging from the 

 habits of rapacious wasps, but that the katydids had been stung when 

 captured, and the wasp's intent upon storing them would naturally be 

 for the purpose of depositing an egg in a safe place with each body. 



Having concluded that the wasp had appropriated the well as her 

 rightful property, the correspondent wanted to know if she intended 

 to stock the crannies of the wall with paralyzed katydids so that her 

 progeny when hatched from the eggs laid with these stored bodies 

 could be reared upon them. In such a case, he asked if a host of 

 wasps would likely hatch out soon as perfect insects. A brief ex- 

 planation of the life history of robber-wasps was given in reply. How- 

 ever, as the matter stood, the bodies of katydids which fell into the 

 water became decomposed and rendered the water objectionable for 

 use on account of danger of pollution. According to the owner's state- 

 ment, this trouble had never happened before to his knowledge, at 

 least within fifteen years. He had already considered the advisabil- 



