148 - WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



within. Thus she was ready to spend the night. And so 

 our suspicions were confirmed that T. terminatus makes a 

 burrow in the evening, sleeps in it that night, fills it the next 

 morning and before evening makes another for her next 

 night's shelter, and so on. The problem of where she sleeps 

 at other times than in the nesting season remains unsolved. 

 In digging in another locality, we accidentally ran across 

 another series of five cells, one right after another and about 

 one inch apart. This also lends strength to our belief that 

 she builds a chain of nests. This may account also for the 

 fact, which we have mentioned before, that she makes no 

 flight of orientation ; with so many nests in one locality she 

 soon becomes so familiar with the region that she needs no 

 special study of its landmarks. 



The prey of this wasp is Orthopterous insects. They are 

 usually of the species Syrbida admirabilis Uhl. [A. N. Cau- 

 dell], small and medium size nymphs. In other cells, how- 

 ever, we found one Oedipodid nymph [A. N. Caudell] and 

 one small Dichromorpha viridis Scud. [A. N. Caudell] 

 nymph in the first stage, Acridean nymphs, and nymphs of 

 Melanoplus sp. [A. N. Caudell]. From five to nine insects 

 are usually used to provision a cell. 



Whether or not there may be any color relation between 

 the wasp larva and its food cannot be declared absolutely, 

 but we were interested in observing that one young larva 

 on a brown hopper was itself brown, while another on a 

 green food was as green as its host. It has been suggested 

 that this color is probably due to that of the juices of the 

 insects consumed. 



Sometimes the larva was found adhering to its food- 

 insect between the second and third pairs of legs, on the 

 ventral side; in other cases they were on the under side of 

 the neck where, in making their attack, they had promptly 

 severed the head from the body. 



