HUNTERS OF SMALL ORTHOPTERA 145 



task. 5 They would often begin digging several places in 

 succession before they carried a burrow to its completion. 

 They would usually begin to dig in some little depression or 

 shallow hole, where their hard work was already begun for 

 them. Here they kicked out the loose dirt and then en- 

 larged the hole sufficiently to receive their stock of pro- 

 visions. The resulting burrow was not of any definite form 

 or dimensions, however, but of any shape and size that the 

 wasp could best excavate in the hard earth. Sometimes her 

 burrow was barely sufficient to get her ill-arranged mass of 

 prey under cover. She attacked the hard soil in much the 

 same manner as she would loose sand; hence it is not sur- 

 prising that she was not very efficient here. She had no 

 refined methods for smoothly cutting out the hard earth, as 

 has Odynerus or Anwiophila. May it not be that the habit 

 of digging became fixed while the species inhabited sandy 

 areas, and that her old habits hampered her when she wan- 

 dered to a different environment and attempted to carry on 

 her work by old methods ? 



The burrow, when completed, is merely a short, curving 

 channel going into the sandy earth aslant; it is about three 

 inches long and the terminus is about an inch and a half be- 

 low the surface of the ground (fig. 34, slightly enlarged). 

 There is no real pocket or cell. These wasps are very wary 

 about the intrusion of human beings, so it is difficult to 

 draw near enough actually to observe their ways without 

 frightening them away. , 



The nest is soon prepared, and the wasp ready to begin 

 carrying in the Orthopterous prey. When at last the nest 

 is provisioned, she closes her burrow with loose sand in a 

 way very similar to B. nnbilipcnnis; she emerges kicking 

 the dirt under her into the burrow and, after it is fully 



5 The Larridae, to which this wasp belongs, are diggers in sand. 



