THE BEMBICENE WASPS 39 



Microbembix monodonta Say [S. A. Rohwer]. 



We saw this little banded Microbembix open her hole and 

 enter, and close her nest preparatory to leaving, whereupon 

 we captured her. The hole went down diagonally for seven 

 inches, then turned at right angles and continued its down- 

 ward course for six inches more, where it terminated with- 

 out either pocket or prey. The end was six and one-half 

 inches below the surface of the earth. 



A second one was seen to leave her hole, after carefully 

 covering it up. The illustration (fig. 7) tells better than 

 words the nature of the burrow. The nesting-site was the 

 semi-barren, sandy area (fig. 8) along the river at Lake 

 View, Kansas. The total length of the hole was fourteen 

 inches. The pocket was hollowed out from the ceiling of 

 the burrow. Great was our surprise upon finding in here 

 two beetles, Neoharmonia velutina [H. S. Barber] and 

 Hippodamia Jj punctata [H. S. Barber], two tree-hoppers, 

 Draeculacephala mollipes Say [E. H. Gibson] and Phlepsius 

 irroratus Say [E. H. Gibson], one spider, a Xysticus ner- 

 vosus Banks [C. L. Shoemaker], and one ant, Pheidole 

 vinelandica Forel [W. M. Wheeler]. All six items of prey 

 were dead, dried and hard. No egg was found with the 

 food. We can hardly, indeed, call this collection by the 

 term prey, because it was only a collection of dead carcasses 

 which the wasp had garnered. Hartman too finds that M. 

 monodonta takes home insects that are already dead. His 

 list includes : slender red caterpillars, the leg of a grasshop- 

 per, small queen ants, large red ant, flies of various kinds, 

 bugs belonging to five different genera, tree-hoppers, polistes 

 wasp, freshly-killed grasshopper, a dry Mutillid and old 

 Orthopterous pupal cases with dry, dead pupae inside. A 

 lengthy and very interesting account of the mating behavior, 

 the nesting-habits, food habits, etc., of this species is included 



