110 Forty-third Report on the State Museum. [14] 



Distribution. 

 It is quite a common species throughout the Eastern United States. 

 It extends from Canada to Texas, and in its broad range is subject to 

 so great variation that several varieties might be made. 



Architecture. 

 The cells of this wasp, as above described, are to be met with 

 "joined to the upper surface of leaves, or stuck to little branches, or 

 fastened against a wall " (H. de Saussure, in Synopsis of American 

 Wasps). Dr. Packard states that they are attached by a short, stout 

 pedicel to bushes; but, according to de Saussure, the cell terminates 

 in a little bell-mouthed neck, which it obliterates after filling. 

 According to Say, the insect constructs for each of its eggs a hollow 

 globe of earth, with a short ascending neck, the rim of which is some- 

 times widely outspread horizontally. In the examples before me, 

 fastened to the under surface of the leaf, one shows the pedicel-like 

 bell-shaped mouth in place, but closed, while the two others show a 

 fracture where the mouth would have been. 



Habits. 

 The provident mother wasp of this species packs the cell to which 

 she consigns her egg with insect food to serve her young until it 

 shall reach its pupal state, when it no longer requires nourishment. 

 Dr. Harris tells us that eighteen or twenty canker-worms are some- 

 times imprisoned in a cell. It is not, however, confined to this 

 particular caterpillar for food, for other nocturnal lepidoptera have 

 been found within cells that have been opened; and the young larvae 

 of butterflies have also been seen in possession of the wasp, destined, 

 no doubt, to serve for larval food, as the wasp itself is not carniv- 

 orous. At c in Figure 1, the interior of a cell is shown packed to its 

 utmost capacity with young canker-worms which had previously been 

 reduced to a stupified and helpless condition, by an amount of poison 

 injected into them in quantity sufiicient barely to permit of a contin- 

 uance of life and prevent decomposition. 



Transformation. 

 About a month is required for the development from the deposit of 

 the egg to the perfect insect, when the thin wall of the cell is easily 

 broken by the wasp for its escape. Examples of the species have 

 been taken by me in various localities in the State of New York from 

 the latter part of July to beyond the middle of August. 



