262 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [NoV 



THE DIGGER WASP. 



{From Hartford (Cf.) Times, September 21, 1899.) 

 It appears that there are other insef ts besides the ant that bar 

 row in soils composed of a light sandy loams generally selecting a 

 sidewalk flagging, or an old stump, under which they cai'ry on 

 their burrowing — leaving, as our correspondent said, little heaps of 

 the soil to show their industry The query of our correspondent 

 (in Tuesday's Times) was answered that the insect was the ant. 

 Now the ant does throw up such little sand-heaps as those men- 

 tioned by our correspondent ; but so does the bigaer insect that 

 makes the little mounds he speaks of. This larger insect is a spe- 

 cies of fossorial wasp— commonly called the Digger Wasp, and 

 which was described two years ago by The Titnes These formid- 

 able looking wasps are useful as destroyers of grasshoppers It is 

 an interesting part of Nature's great system of checks and balances 

 by which an equilibrium is maintained, thus preventing the undue 

 increase of any one species, whether ot insects or creatures. An ob- 

 server a few days since found a female Digger Wasp tilling her nest 

 with grasshoppers, to serve as food for the larvae until they are 

 developed far enough to go through with their transfoi'mations 

 The wasp here spoken of does not kill the insects with her sting, 

 but paralyzes them, so that they will remain good food for the 

 larvae. Some spiders do the same thing. The Digger Wasp is 

 closely related to the ''mud dauber" wasps, which make nests of 

 clay in barns, sheds, garrets, etc, and we believe also paralyze the 

 insects they store up for their progeny. It is tiie female that makes 

 the nest and uses her sting. It is one of the many wonderful pro- 

 visions in the insect world of wtiat we call (but soraetimea igno- 

 rantly) "animal instinct." At present the wasps are filling their 

 nests with grasshoppers 



Note. — The wasp the article is trying to describe is undoubtedly Tachytes, 

 as the 5. Speciosus is not all common here, while tha , Tachytis is very common 

 his year.— 8 N. Dunning 



O 



Natick, Mass., August 29, 1899. 

 Editors of Entomological News. — I enclose a clipping 

 from The Boston Traveller for July 28th, which I think is de- 

 serving of repetition in your paper. Having long been a stu- 

 dent of insect life, it struck me that it would be an exceedingly 

 interesting sight to see caterpillars emerging full grown from 

 cocoons, and so made haste to investigate, but to my great sor- 

 row none of the caterpillars were obliging enough to emerge 

 to please me, and so I was denied a chance to record the won- 

 derful occurrence for your readers. What I did find was that 

 the trees were really loaded wath cocoons of Orgyia leiicostima. 

 Most seemed to be empty and many weie covered with the 



