66 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



it was surrounded by the remains of twenty flies. He fed it 

 generously and it ate sixty-two more, making a total of eighty- 

 two in the eight days that passed before the spinning of the 

 cocoon. Our experiments in this line gave similar results. We 

 took charge of a partly grown larva on the afternoon of August 

 tenth and between that date and August fifteenth, when it spun 

 its cocoon, it ate forty-two house flies besides a big Tabanus. 



Fabre thinks that under natural conditions the mother does 

 not give the larva all it can eat at one time but provides it with 

 what she considers a reasonable amount of food, and keeps any- 

 thing that she catches beyond this out of its reach. He draws 

 his conclusion from the fact that he has found several flies in 

 the tunnel leading to the nest, while the larva had as many 

 more close to it. It would certainly be convenient for Bembc 

 to have a reserve of this kind in case of rainy weather, but 

 the forethought required for such an action seems to require a 

 higher degree of intelligence than can be claimed for her. 



In one nest we found a single fly with a long cylindrical egg 

 attached to the left side of the thorax just at the origin of the 

 third leg. In another, which we had seen made and provis- 

 ioned, we found, six days later, a larva which we judged to be 

 four days old. Assuming that the egg was laid on the first day 

 it must have taken it about two days to hatch. Other nests 

 gave us larvae in all stages of development, surrounded by the 

 remains of diptera, among which Syrphus, Tabaiws, and Musca 

 were represented. 



In regard to the condition of the flies captured by Bembev 

 we have never seen the crushing of the thorax, which is noted 

 by both Wesenberg and Fabre. Indeed the flies that we found 

 were not always dead, since in two instances they responded 

 readily to stimulation. Similar results have been obtained by 

 Mr. S. "W. Dunning of Hartford, Connecticut, whose note on 

 the subject is as follows: 



"One female observed around burrow. Burrow ran at an angle of 

 40 from surface, was 4-5 inches deep and contained one larva and a 

 number of partially destroyed and some whole diptera. Those that 



