498 



THE BURROWING WASPS. 



popularly by the names of Sand Wasps and Wood Wasps. These creatures are in the 

 habit of making burrows into the ground or in the posts, and placing therein their 

 eggs, together with the bodies of other insects which are destined to serve as food for the 

 future progeny. Spiders are sometimes captured, and immured for this purpose. In 

 many instances the captured insects are stung to death before they are placed in the 

 burrow, but it is often found that they only receive a wound sufficient to paralyze 

 them, so that they lead a semi-torpid life until they are killed and eaten by the young 

 grub. Two of these Sand Wasps are given in the illustration. That on the left is one 

 of the wood-borers, drilling its burrow into posts, palings, and similar substances, and 

 feeds its young with the larvae of one of the leaf-rolling caterpillars that lives in the 

 oak, and is scientifically known by the name of Tortrix chlordna. It also employs for 

 this purpose several two-winged insects. One species of these burrowing wasps pre- 

 fers the well-known cuckoo-spit insect for this purpose (Aphrbphora spumdrid), pulling 

 it out of its frothy bed by means of its long legs. 



The right-hand figure represents a species that is in the habit of provisioning its 

 burrow with the hive-bee, which it contrives to master in spite of the formidable 

 weapon possessed by its victim, and then murders or paralyzes by means of its sting. 

 M. Latreille mentioned that he saw from fifty to sixty of these insects busily engaged 

 in burrowing into a sandbank not more than forty yards long ; and as each female lays 

 five or six eggs, and deposits a bee with each egg, the havoc made among the hives is 

 by no means inconsiderable. 



Monedula slgnatm. 



Pompilus nobilis. 



Scolia pratorutn. 



IN the accompanying illustration is shown a Brazilian species, belonging to a genus 

 which is represented in England by more than twenty species. In these insects the 

 legs are very long and spider-like, enabling their owners to run about among grass 

 with great vivacity, their wings quivering all the while with violent agitation. Some of 

 the species are in the habit of catching spiders, and provisioning the burrows with 

 them. It is worthy of notice, that the largest specimens of Hymenoptera are to be 

 found in exotic insects belonging to this family, the genus Pepsis being most remark- 

 able for the great dimensions of its members. 



The right-hand figure represents an insect which, though common in Southern 

 Europe, has not yet been satisfactorily proved to be an inhabitant of England. Judg- 

 ing by the habits of those species which have been studied, the whole of the family to 

 which it belongs are sand-burrowers, and seem to be cruelly predacious, mastering 

 insects of considerable size, and dragging them into their burrows. One of these 

 insects (Scolia bicinctd) has been known to capture and inter a large locust, the tunnel 

 being some eighteen inches in depth and very wide at the mouth. 



