THE BEMBICINE WASPS 41 



says that when the burrow is completed, a single egg is placed 

 in the brood chamber, at the extreme end. This is firmly fast- 

 ened in an upright position in the sand of the floor. No 

 food is placed in the burrow until after the egg has hatched 

 in the course of two or three days. Our single wasp had 

 already provisioned the nest with six dead insects and had 

 left the nest presumably for more, but a very careful search 

 revealed no egg nor larva. Whether the Ohio wasps differ 

 in their ways of housekeeping from the Kansas wasps, or 

 whether ours was only an eccentric individual we do not 

 know. The crooked nesting burrow described above seems 

 also to be only an eccentricity. These points only show that 

 wasps as well as other beings may express, consciously or 

 unconsciously, their individuality. 



Barth, 9 in speaking of this genus and also of Bembix, 

 says the "Larvae are fed from day to day, nests remaining 

 open during excursions." This sweeping statement cannot 

 apply to Microbeiribix monodonta. 



Bicyrtes qiiadrifasciata Say [S. A. Rohwer]. 



In a semi-barren, sandy area (fig. 8) beside the Kaw 

 River at Lake View, Kansas, we found our only specimens 

 of B. quadrifasciata. Parker 10 has described very well her 

 manner of approaching her nest as she returns to it. She 

 returns on the wing, flying high in the air, and poises in mid- 

 air ten or twelve feet above the hole, then drops straight 

 down, as if with a parachute, digs a moment at her very 

 feet where she alights, and lo ! her burrow opens. Truly, 

 the students of animal psychology who are trying to solve 

 the homing of insects have here an interesting problem. 



9 Bull. Wise. Nat. Hist. Soc. 8: 118. 1910. 



10 Loc. cit. p. 134. 



