More Hunting Wasps 



absolutely nothing! None of us, if he 

 were unfamiliar with the delicate associations 

 dictated by anatomy, would think of classing 

 them together. The Tachytes, on the other 

 hand, makes no mistake. Guided by her in- 

 stinct, which rivals the science of a Latreille,^ 

 she groups them all together. 



This instinctive taxonomy becomes more 

 surprising still if we consider the variety of 

 the game stored in a single burrow. The 

 Mantis-killing Tachytes, for instance, preys 

 indiscriminately upon all the Mantides that 

 occur in her neighbourhood. I see her ware- 

 housing three of them, the only varieties, in 

 fact, that I know in my district. They are 

 the following: the Praying Mantis (M. re- 

 ligiosa, LIN.), the Grey Mantis^ {Ameles 

 decolor, CHARP.) and the Empusa » {E. 

 pauperata, LATR.). The numerical pre- 

 dominance in the Tachytes' cells belongs to 

 the Praying Mantis; and the Grey Mantis 

 occupies second place. The Empusa, who 

 is comparatively rare on the brushwood in 

 the neighbourhood, is also rare in the store- 



1 Pierre Andre Latreille (1762-1833), one of the found- 

 ers of entomolopical science, a professor at the Musee 

 d'histoire naturelle and member of the Academie des 

 sciences. — Translator's Note. 



2 Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper : chap, x.— Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



3 Cf . idem : chap. ix. — Translator's Note. 



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