HUNTERS OF LARGE ORTHOPTERA 203 



.pression that she is attracted to a favorable spot for prey by 

 her auditory sense. She "stood in the doorway, turning 

 her head now to this side, and now to that, as though lis- 

 tening, and now we became conscious of the fact that a 

 cricket was chirping loudly nearby. Perhaps she was getting 

 the direction from which the sound came, for, after a little, 

 she flew to the top of a tall weed, then dropped and entered 

 a hole below, from which she issued a moment later, with a 

 very limp specimen of Gryllus abbreviates." Of course it 

 remains entirely possible that this wasp, which seems to be 

 possessed of a mania for peeping into all holes and crevices 

 anyway, was not attracted at all by the cricket's song. 

 Furthermore, this implies that she has auditory organs on 

 the head just because "she turned her head now to this side 

 and now to that." In fact, it has never yet been positively 

 demonstrated that they have auditory organs anywhere. 



Chlorion (Isodontia) auripes Fern. [S. A. Rohwer]. 



We have never yet seen this wasp catch its prey, but we 

 place this account of certain aspects of its behavior in 

 the chapter, "The Hunters of Large Orthoptera," for two 

 reasons : first, that Fernald 18 places this, as well as the two 

 preceding species, in the sub-family Chlorionini; and sec- 

 ond, that Davidson 19 finds that a sister species under the 

 name Sphex elegans, now called by Fernald Chlorion (Iso- 

 dontia) elegans, uses tree crickets for the nests containing 

 young. 



One July morning we saw on the barn door a wasp carry- 

 ing a piece of excelsior about three inches long. It was such 

 an unusual sight that we ran to observe it, but, without warn- 



18 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 31 : 356. 1907. 



19 Ent. News 10 : 179-180. 1899. 



