BEHAVIOR OF POMPILID WASPS 77 



times seem bizarre, yet her action contains an increased 

 portion of refreshing multiformity and resourcefulness. 

 And so also in her way of carrying her prey, she has not 

 one fixed way, but a variety of ways. She seems, in fact, 

 to be entirely without any fixed habit in this point, except- 

 ing that she grasps it in her jaws. This is really the only 

 way possible for her, since she is so small that she could 

 not possibly straddle spiders of the size she catches. Her 

 most common mode of locomotion is to walk backward, 

 pulling her prey (fig. 14), but she also sometimes walks side- 

 wise, dragging her burden at right angles to her own body. 

 Her method of half-running and half-flying with the feet on 

 the ground, while she either pushes or pulls her spider, has 

 already been described. In making ready to drag her prey, 

 she seizes it by any of its members that may offer them- 

 selves as a convenient handle at the moment. Each place 

 of insertion of her jaws in the spider's anatomy gives it a 

 different aspect. For instance, when she grasps the spider 

 by the base of one middle leg, this stands the body on its 

 side; when she grasps it by the middle of the ventral side 

 of the thorax, the ponderous abdomen bobs up and down 

 as it passes over the rough ground in a way that must be 

 annoying to the little worker. Another of her favorite 

 methods is to seize it by the palpi. The. loose sand often 

 gives way under her feet, and both captor and prey roll 

 headlong. 



Another species of Priocnemis (P. flauicornis} according 

 to Needham and Loyd 8 transport their prey by flying above 

 the surface of the water and towing the load too heavy to 

 be carried. Out onto the surface of the water the wasp 

 drags the huge limp spider, "and, mounting into the air with 

 her engines going and her wings steadily .buzzing, she sails 

 across the water, trailing the spider and leaving a wake 



8 Life of Inland Waters, p. 330. 1916. 



