THE LARGER DIGGER WASP. iss 
This wasp and its near allies are the natural and perhaps the most 
destructive of the insect enemies of the adults of the different species 
of the Cicada, and their operations are often witnessed and are com- 
mented upon in print nearly every season. In fact, no more curious 
and interesting illustration of the wars which take place in the insect 
world is afforded than the sight of one of these wasps seizing its victim 
and silencing and paralyzing it with a sting, which, while throwing it 
into a comatose condition from which it never recovers and suspending 
or greatly reducing its vital functions, does not actually kill it, but 
leaves it an unresisting, living prey for the delicate wasp larva. 
The fact that some tragedy is being enacted is often brought to the 
attention of the observer by the sudden cessation of the regular song 
note of the unsuspecting Cicada. The song ends in a sharp cry of 
distress, and if one is in position to witness the struggle the wasp may 
be seen grasping its 
victim and endeay- 
oring to take flight, 
the quick thrust of 
its sting having al- 
most immediately 
quieted the Cicada. 
Very often in the 
first struggle the 
wasp and the Ci- 
cada fall to the 
ground together, 
and it 1s necessary 
for ‘the former la-.  . 
boriously to cimb <*%% 
the tree again, drag- Fia. 59.—Larva of Sphecius sp 
ging the Cicada 
with it, in order to take flight from an elevated point, the Cicada being 
usually much heavier than the wasp and bearing the latter slowly 
to the ground as it flies. For this reason it often becomes necessary 
for the wasp to carry the Cicada several times up into near-by trees, 
making repeated short flights before it reaches its burrow. 
The latter is excavated with great activity by the wasp, the drier 
and more elevated situations being usually chosen. The burrow 
ranges from 18 inches to 2 or 3 feet in length and has three or four or 
more branches of from 6 inches to a foot in length, each terminating 
in a little oval chamber. Within each of these chambers is stored a 
Cicada to which a single wasp egg is attached in such manner as to be 
covered and protected by one of the middle legs of the Cicada. 
The parasitic larva on hatching merely protrudes its head and 
makes an opening into the body of its host at some suture where 
Re re 
inning its coccon. Natural size (after 
Riley). 
