164 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



Agenia bombycina Cresson. 



In the literature of the hymenoptera references have been 

 made from time to time, to certain wasps that cut off the legs 

 of spiders or other creatures before storing them away, but 

 observations on the subject have been rare and not very def- 

 inite. Kirby and Spence* quote from M. Cassigny to the 

 effect that he has seen species of Sphecina, in the Isle of 

 France, drag into their holes dead cockroaches, and that when 

 one happened to be too large to enter, the elytra, and come of 

 the legs were removed so that it could be drawn in without 

 difficulty. Brehm, in the "Thierleben," says that Agenia 

 punctata builds nests of mud and places in each cell one mod- 

 erately large spider from which she has first removed all the 

 legs. The most interesting notes on the subject have been 

 made by M. Goureau* who gives an account of finding two 

 spiders that had been mutilated by wasps, one of them having 

 had all of the legs cut off and the other, all but the first pair. 

 At another time a wasp that was flying near him let fall a 

 spider which he captured before it could be recovered by the 

 owner. The wasp escaped so that he could not determine the 

 species, but the spider's legs had been removed. He conclud- 

 ed that instead of stinging the spiders the wasps had mutilated 

 them so that they could not run away. He does not seem to 

 realize that death would certainly result from such an operation. 



Vespa germanica often cuts off the wings of a dead wasp or 

 even cuts its body into two parts, before flying away with it, 

 but this is only when the captured insect is too large to be 

 handled in any other way; and Potnpilus fuscipennis some- 

 times cuts off one or more legs from her spider, although with- 

 out any regular method of procedure. 



"We once saw a wasp of the species Agenia bombycina carry- 

 ing a spider (an adult female Maevia vittata) from which all 

 the legs had been cut off excepting those of the first pair. She 



^Introduction to Entomology, 7th edition, p. 562. 



*Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1839. Tome VIII., pp. 539-542. 



