222 SEVENTEENTH Report STATE ENTOMOLOGIST OF MINNESOTA—1918 
spring. He further says, “the things that struck us most, were the 
most unerring judgment in the selection of a pebble of precisely the 
right size to fit the entrance and the use of the small pebble in smooth- 
ing down and packing the soil over the opening, together with the in- 
stinct that taught them to remove every evidence that the earth had 
been disturbed.” 
The relative strength of wasps of this genus is surprising. Ash- 
mead saw A. (Sphex) cementaria Smith, after paralyzing a half grown 
Sphinx larva by stinging, seize it just back of the head with its jaws 
and since it was too heavy a burden to fly with, straddle it, and 
drag it off to its cell, moving forward. A European species has 
been observed “dragging a very large inflated spider up the nearly 
perpendicular side of a sand bank at least 20 feet high.” 
Ammophila pictipennis provisions its nest with cutworms. The 
steel-blue Chalybion caeruleum stores in its burrows, crickets, locusts, 
and spiders. 
Minnesota species: Chlorion (C.) cyaneum Dahlb., C. (Pal- 
modes) abdominalis Cress., C. (Priononyx) atratum LeP., Sphex 
(Psammophila) luctuosa Sm., Chalybion caeruleum L. Sceliphron 
cementarius Drury, Chlorion (Ammobia) ichneumoneum L. (see col. 
pl. 2). Sphex pictipennis Walsh, S. robusta Cress., Chlorion (A.) 
pennsylvanicum L. For illustration of the latter see Howard’s Insect 
Book, Pl. VII, fig. 20. 
Sphex sp. has been taken in Rock and Fillmore Counties in Sep- 
tember. 
LARRIDAE 
Eyes most frequently normal, rarely emarginate within; hind ocelli normal or 
aborted, or wanting; labrum small, not free; usually completely hidden by the ely- 
peus; mandibles often emarginate on the under side; front wings with a distinct 
stigma, and with two or three submarginal cells; middle tibiae with only one apical 
spur; abdomen sessile, never petiolate; no strong constriction between the first and 
second segments. 
Fig. 111. Tachysphex terminatus Sm. 
female. 
