240 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



At Allenton, Mo., July n, 1916, one of these wasps was 

 searching for something half-way up an almost vertical clay 

 bank, five feet high. Soon she discovered her big green 

 caterpillar, Nadata gibbosa [S. B. Fracker] which was lying 

 there; she took it up between her legs and continued her 

 journey straight up this steep bank, with astonishing rapidity. 

 She held it just as A. pictipennis does, with the dorsum of 

 the caterpillar toward the ground, although in this case such 

 a position seemed unnecessary since she held the caterpillar, 

 which must have weighed about eight times as much as she, 

 high enough from the ground to make friction impossible. 

 It was difficult to follow her among the weeds on top of the 

 bank. It is doubtful if she knew where she was going, since 

 three times in course of her rambling travels she climbed the 

 trunks of trees to the height of three to five feet, as if she 

 were getting her bearings; then she would fly down with 

 her burden and continue her journey. Presently she aban- 

 doned her caterpillar, seeming unable to reach her destina- 

 tion. 



When the caterpillar, Nadata gibbosa, was picked up after 

 she had discarded it, it seemed unable to respond to stimuli 

 in any but the last segment of the body. The third day it 

 was still alive and responded with both anterior and pos- 

 terior extremities. 



When one walks along the road and sees, as described 

 above, A. proceras fly ahead of one in a straight line, pause 

 a moment, then fly further on, etc., one thinks that 

 this might serve as a method for dissemination, and 

 that wasps continuing this for a number of hours each day, 

 for several days, might soon be far from their fatherland. 

 But, after observing their ways carefully, we are sure that 

 they do not roam very far from home, although they appear 

 to. On that day in 'particular we followed many wasps. 

 They would fly along the road in a straight line and lure us 



