128 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



their necks, with their long sickle-shaped jaws. 

 The females may generally be handled with (he 

 naked fingers with perfect impnnity ; for, like 

 those of most of the Wood "Wasps {Crahro 

 family), it is not one time in five hundred that 

 they will use their stings, though they will gen- 

 erally make ineffectual attempts to wound with 

 their long slender sharp-pointed jaws. The spe- 

 [Fis. 100] cies sketched herewith, 



the Painted-wing Digger 

 Wasp, (Ammopfiila pic- 

 ' tipennis, n. sp. Fig. 100), 

 is new to science, and a 

 full description of it will 

 be found in the Appen- 

 dix. It is tolerably com- 

 /f ▼ V inon in South Illinois, 



(•oIo,4-Blacka,ulblood-rert;^"f ^^'"^ ''"^^ "^ver cap- 



wings nist-red ami iiiisky. tured it in the more 

 northerly parts of the State, and do not be- 

 lieve that it is to be met with there. Some 

 of our common species greatly exceed it in 

 size and beauty, many of them being elegant- 

 ly marked in various patterns with patches of 

 silvery white pubescence. All of them, however, 

 have the same general shape and make, and no 

 doubt have the same general habits. We figure 

 this species here, though it is comparatively 

 small and inconspicuously colored, because we 

 have received the following very interesting ac- 

 count of its habits from the mouth of Mr. 

 T. A. E. Holcomb, of South Pass, in South 

 Illinois. 



, On June 10th, 1868, I saw this wasp carrviiiff a good- 

 Mzed cutworm aloug the surface of the eroiind lor a 

 distaucc of about six rods. She held the ■■iitwnrm 



I :-ubsi. fluently due: into the spot wliere the cutworm 

 had been buried, and found the worm about two and a 

 lialf Indies below the surface of the .ground, with an 

 e^'^' attaeluLl lo it near its middle. This cutworm I 

 placed, e-- and all, in a small jar al<.>." with <.«„„. 

 damp earth; and on .nii.ivin- mil ilic 

 jar eighteen davs aftrrw ;ir,l.; I i,,iin.l 



•pun 



I shall succeed in 

 larva iu 1869, renia 



nteius of the 

 af the woiTM 

 larva of the 

 leiher or not 

 isp from this 



Almost all the iiiiiucrdus .s|>(cies belonging to 

 the above genus {Jnunojihiia), the habits of 

 which are known, i)rovision their nests, like our 

 new species, with caterpillars; only one or two 

 species employing spiders, either normally or 

 occasionally, for tliis purpose. We might quote 

 many similar cases in other genera of Digger 

 Wasps; and iu all of them we may see interest- 

 ing examples of llie great law (if the Uxrrv of 

 Habits. 



In No. I) of the Amekican Entomologist, 

 page 111, we gave a figure of the Tarantula of 

 Texas (Jfi/yale Hentzil, Girard), and an account 

 from the pen of Dr. Liuceeum of Texas of the 

 mode in which it is caiitured, and stung so as to 

 completely pnralyze it, by a gigantic Digger 

 Wasp {I'epsis \_pompilus]formosa, Say); after 

 which it is deposited, as provision for the future 

 hirva of the mother-Avasp, in a hole which she 

 digs fort linl purpose in the ground. Wo pre- 



that no in>r>-i in, i,,i iit i 

 sheliad lakrn -m nmr], ,,; 



Jii»t as Hie operation was completed,^! caught the wa'sn 



Loloi-s— Mulsh-gi-eeu; wings rufous aud dusky. 



sent herewith a figure of this Tarantula-killer, 

 as it is commonly called in Texas; and we 

 append an account of its mode of preying upon 

 the Tarantula, by jNIr. S. B. Buckley of Texas, 

 which was printed in the Proceedings of (he 

 Philadelphia Entomological Society six years 

 before Dr. Liuceeum wrote on the subject.* This 

 account embodies several particulars, which have 

 not previo usly appeared in our columns. 



•Vol. I, pp. 138-9, 



