The Yellow-winged Sphex 



straying about the ruts in the roads as 

 though seeking for a burrow to suit it, al- 

 ways left me uncertain. I have never wit- 

 nessed its digging-work, if it really un- 

 dertakes the labour of excavation. And, a 

 more serious matter, I have seen it leave its 

 game on the rubbish-heap, perhaps not 

 knowing what to do with it, for lack of a bur- 

 row wherein to place it. Such wastefulness 

 as this seems to me to point to ill-gotten 

 goods; and I ask myself if the Cricket were 

 not stolen from the Sphex at the moment 

 when she abandoned her prey on the thresh- 

 old. My suspicions also fall upon Tachytes 

 obsoleta, banded with white round the abdo- 

 men like Sphex albisecta and feeding her lar- 

 vae on Crickets similar to those hunted by the 

 latter. I have never seen her digging any 

 galleries, but I have caught her with a 

 Cricket whom the Sphex would not have re- 

 jected. This identity of provisions in spe- 

 cies of different genera raises doubts in my 

 mind as to the lawfulness of the booty. Let 

 me add, lastly, to atone in a measure for the 

 injury which my suspicions may do to the 

 reputation of the genus, that I have been the 

 eye-witness of a perfectly straightforward 

 capture of a small and still wingless Cricket 

 75 



