More Hunting Wasps 



Ringed Pompilus {Calicurgus annulatus, 

 FAB.), clad in black and yellow. She 

 stands high on her legs; and her wings have 

 black tips, the rest being yellow, as though 

 exposed to smoke, like a bloater. Her size 

 is about that of the Hornet {Vespa crahro). 

 She is rare. I see three or four of her in 

 the course of the year; and I never fail to 

 halt in the presence of the proud insect, 

 rapidly striding through the dust of the fields 

 when the dog-days arrive. Its audacious 

 air, its uncouth gait, its war-like bearing long 

 made me suspect that to obtain its prey it 

 had to make some impossible, terrible, un- 

 speakable capture. And my guess was cor- 

 rect. By dint of waiting and watching I 

 beheld that victim; I saw it in the huntress' 

 mandibles. It is the Black-bellied Taran- 

 tula, the terrible Spider who slays a Carpen- 

 ter-bee or a Bumble-bee outright with one 

 stroke of her weapon; the Spider who kills 

 a Sparrow or a Mole; the formidable crea- 

 ture whose bite would perhaps not be with- 

 out danger to ourselves. Yes, this is the 

 bill of fare which the proud Pompilus pro- 

 vides for her larva. 



This spectacle, one of the most striking 

 with which the Hunting Wasps have ever 

 provided me, has as yet been offered to my 

 4 



