More Hunting Wasps 



to four carcases to a cell. When the time 

 comes we will discover the reason for these 

 differences in the rations served. 



The Mantis-killing Tachytes ^ wears a red 

 scarf, like her kinswoman, Panzer's Tach- 

 ytes. I do not think that she is very 

 widely distributed. I made her acquaintance 

 in the Serignan woods, where she inhabits, 

 or rather used to inhabit — for I fear that 

 I have depopulated and even destroyed the 

 community by my repeated excavations — 

 where she used to inhabit one of those little 

 mounds of sand which the wind heaps up 

 against the rosemary clumps. Outside this 

 small community, I never saw her again. 

 Her history, rich in incident, will be given 

 with all the detail which it deserves. I will 



1 The Mantis-hunting Tachytes was submitted to ex- 

 amination by M. J. Perez, who failed to recognize her. 

 This species may well be new to our fauna. I confine 

 myself to calling her the Mantis-killing Tachytes and 

 leave to the specialists the task of adorning her with a 

 Latin name, if it be really the fact that the Wasp is not 

 yet catalogued. I will be brief in my delineation. To 

 my thinking the best description is this: mantis-hunter. 

 With this information it is impossible to mistake the 

 insect, in my district of course. I may add that it is 

 black, with the first two abdominal segments, the legs 

 and the tarsi a rusty red. Clad in the same livery and 

 much smaller than the female, the male is remarkable for 

 his eyes, which are of a beautiful lemon-yellow when he 

 is alive. The length is nearly half ^n inch for the fe- 

 male and a little more than half this for the male. — 

 Author's Note. 



134 



