The Hunting Wasps 



live underground. These caterpillars, com- 

 monly known as Grey Worms, because of 

 their drab garb, are a most formidable 

 scourge to agricultural crops, as well as to 

 garden produce. Curled in their burrows 

 by day, they climb to the surface at night and 

 gnaw the base or collar of the herbaceous 

 plants. Everything suits them: ornamental 

 plants and edible plants alike. Flower-beds, 

 market-gardens, fields are laid waste without 

 distinction. When a seedling withers with- 

 out apparent cause, draw it to you gently ; and 

 the dying plant will come up, but maimed, 

 severed from its root. The Grey Worm 

 has passed that way in the night; its greedy 

 mandibles have performed the deadly ampu- 

 tation. Its havoc rivals that wrought by the 

 White Worm, the grub of the Cockchafer. 

 When it swarms in a beet-country, the dam- 

 age amounts to millions. This is the terri- 

 ble enemy against which the Ammophila 

 comes to our aid. 



I point out and urgently recommend to 

 to agriculturalists this valuable auxiliary, so 

 zealous in her search of the Grey Worm in 

 spring, so skilful in discovering its hiding- 

 place. An Ammophila in a garden may 

 mean the saving of a lettuce-bed, the snatch- 

 382 



