Sand-Wasps. 



209 



The Potter Sand-Wasp. 



This little wasp when she has filled up hershaft, after provisioning 

 the cell with food and laying an egg, takes a small stone in her 

 jaws and with it pounds down the earth to make it firm and like 

 its surroundings. 



and took the caterpillar again in tow. 

 They both disappeared below, but the 

 wasp came up alone after an interval 

 and busied itself in rolling pieces of earth 

 into the hole — " at intervals scratching 

 the dust into it like a dog with its fore- 

 feet, and entering as if to press down and 

 consolidate the mass, flying once or 

 twice to an adjoining fir-tree, possibly to 

 obtain resin for agglutinating the whole. 

 Having filled the burrow to the level of 

 the surrounding earth so as to conceal 

 the entrance, it took two fir-leaves lying 

 at hand, and placed them near the orifice, 

 as if to mark the place." 



There is only a single cell at the 

 bottom of the sand-wasp's shaft, and 

 some species fill this with small or 

 medium-sized caterpillars ; others with 

 a single large caterpillar. All of these, 

 of course, are stung in order to paralyze them. Fabre sa^^s of the 

 hairy sand-wasp, ^ that she provisions her cell with only one caterpillar, 

 that of a thick-bodied moth,- which is an underground feeder and, therefore, cannot 

 be found by sight. This caterpillar she stings about nine times in as many forward 

 divisions of the body. She waits until^shehas secured this caterpillar before she 

 sets to work at her mining operations. 



Dr. G. D. H. Carpenter, watching 

 this same species at Bordighera, dug out 

 the caterpillar and laid it beside the hole 

 to see what the wasp would do when she 

 returned. " When the wasp came back 

 and found the larva h'ing there it 

 examined it and seemed puzzled, and 

 then deliberately sucked the contents of 

 the egg dry (I watched it shrivel !) and 

 deposited another in its place." She was 

 evidently not >ure that it was her own 

 egg, or if her own that it had not been 

 tampered with b\' an ichneumon-wasp 

 and so rendered useless. To make sure 

 she destroyed it and laid another. 



Mr. and Mrs. Peckham have given us 

 most interesting accounts of two Ameri- 

 can species,^ agreeing in the main with 

 Fabre's observations on tlie luirojiean 



^ Amni()]>hila hirsuta. - Noctiia. 



Photo by] [H. Baslin. 



Ked-banded Sand-Wasp. 



A graceful wasp that may be seen commonly where there are sand- 

 banks, digging deep holes in thoni. Save for a broad band of red 

 across the long, slender waist, she is entirely black, and measures 

 three-quarters of an inch in length. 



3 .Vmmoiihila urnalis and .\. gracilis. 



