142 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



cies, the Rnst-red Social Wasp (Polistes rubigin- 

 ostis, St. Farg.jFig. T12,«), thestingof whichwe 

 know by painful expei-ience to resemble closely a 

 large darning-needle heated to a white heat, built 

 great numbers of nests in barns and other out- 

 buildings in the town of Jonesboro in South 

 Illinois. We therefore wrote to our good friend, 

 Mr. Paul Frick of that town, to ask him to ex- 

 amine tlie timbers of his barn and report the 

 results. In reply he informed us that he found 

 great numbers of the Wasp's combs there, and 

 that, as a general rule, tliey were suspended in a 

 horizontal position from the lower surface of 

 the beams of the building; "though," as he 

 adds, " he has sometimes seen the comb attached 

 to a rafter and placed obliquely, so as to corres- 

 pond with the slant of the rafter from whicli it 

 hangs." Thirdly, Mr. X. C. McLean, of Coles 

 county. Ills., informs us that a species (proba- 

 from his description P. paUipes, St. Farg.), 

 which commonly builds nests under the eaves 

 of his house, always builds horizontal combs, 

 with the cells opening downwards. Lastly, 

 Dr. Packard states, that three different species 

 of this genus, with the economy of which he 

 became personally very familiar iu Virginia, all 

 of them built their combs " with the mouths* 

 of the cells pointing downwards."* 



It would be interesting to know whether 

 most of the other North American species of this 

 genus {FoUstes) besides the five or sis just now 

 referred to, and most of the South American spe- 

 cies likewise, adopt the same style of architec- 

 ture. In that event, as the animals and plants 

 of the New World are now generally allowed 

 by naturalists to belong to a more ancient and 

 oid-fashioned type than those of the so-called 

 Old World, we might assume that the American 

 style of building is the normal and primordial 

 one, and that the European style is a modern 

 improvement upon it. Perhaps, in the course 

 of indefinite ages, the Yellow-jackets and Hor- 

 nets of Europe may improve iu the same man- 

 ner upon the antediluvian horizontal style of 

 architecture, which is still universally followed 

 on both sides of the Atlantic by all the species 

 of the genus ( Vespa) to which they belong, and 

 may take to building vertical combs, like those 

 highly civilized and highly developed Cauca- 

 sians among the social insects — the honey-bees. 



As to the diet of this genus {PoUstes), it ap- 

 pears, like that of the Hornets and Yellow- 

 jackets ( Vespa), io be partly vegetable and partly 

 animal. AVe once observed the same large rust- 

 red species, wliich has been figured above, chew- 



• Guide to the Study ol Insects , p. 131 . 



ing up a green caterpillar some three-quarters 

 of an inch long, as the wasp itself sate perched 

 upon one of the limbs of a tree; but ordinarily 

 these insects, like most other kinds of wasps, 

 may be found flying from flower to flower in 

 search of honey and pollen, and occasionally 

 perhaps gobbling up some peculiarly sweet- 

 scented and sweet-flavored " bug" or " worm." 

 As in the case of the Bald-f\iced Hornet, the 

 probability is that they catch insects as food for 

 their young larvse, first chewing them up into 

 a kind of pap or pulp, and live themselves upon 

 honey and pollen. 



The females of the only two species of this 

 genus (Polisies), that we have met with in 

 North Illinois (P. americanus, Fa.hr., and P.fits- 

 catus, Fabr.), we have noticed repeatedly to 

 hybernate under the loose bark of standing 

 trees ; and in neither can we perceive any 

 marked difTereuce in the respective size or color- 

 ing of the bybernating females and the so-called 

 workers found at large in profuse abundance in 

 the middle of the summer. So that the distinc- 

 tion between these two forms seems to be here 

 inappreciable to the eye, although, judging from 

 the analogy of allied species carefully observed 

 iu Europe, it must have a real existence. 



The following paragraphs from the pen of Mr- 

 A. Fendler of Missouri, woich appeared about 

 two years ago iu the Gardeners' 2Ionthly, prove 

 that wasps ai-e occasionally very beneficial to 

 the farmer by carrying oft" caterpillars on a 

 wholesale scale. From the circumstance that 

 the wasps observed by him are stated to have 

 '•worked up their prey into a small ball," it is 

 quite clear that they must have belonged to some 

 of the social species ; for none of the Solitary 

 Wasps ever do this, for reasons which have been 

 already explained. But to which of the two 

 genera illustrated by us ( Vespa and Polistes) 

 they really appertained, is left uncertain. Per- 

 haps species belonging to both genera may have 

 united in the good work. Certainly these 

 wasps must have belonged to one or the other 

 genus referred to above ; for, with the exception 

 of a single species found exclusively in Califor- 

 nia (Po^y6/« /arrt«ms Sauss.), they are tlie 

 only genera of Social Wasps that occur in the 

 United States. 



One of the most tedious kinds of work in raising a crop 

 of tobacco is the turning over of every leaf in Bearcn of the 

 caterpillar, known by the name of horn-worm or to- 

 bacco-worm, so very 'destructive to thatcrop.* These 

 worms can be found of all sizes, from that of a sewing- 

 needle's point to that of a man's linger * * * * * 



•Jlost probably Ihe larva of the Tobacco-worm moth 

 (Sphinx Carolina Liun) . The Potato- wonu , which is the 

 larva of a very closely allied species 

 founded with 'the other one. but qu 



itK, long 



