78 
it in the neck. She was not immediately successful, as the larva 
struggled fiercely and, emitting a blackish brown fluid from her 
mouth, soon messed up her enemy. But in the course of a very 
few seconds the larva grew quiet and Methoca, releasing her hold, 
got out of the burrow, flattened and scraped her venter on the 
soil, and rubbed her abdomen with her hind legs in an effort to 
free herself of the juice so liberally smeared on her body by her 
prey. 
October 26, 3:30 p. m.: The wasp walked down another bur- 
row in a bold but alert manner, and while the cicindelid was 
snapping viciously she grasped the side of its head or thoracic 
shield in her mandibles and, bending her body under the larva’s 
head, endeavored, free of and to one side of the big mandibles, 
to sting it in the neighborhood of the throat. The larva did not 
immediately succumb, but struggling violently, crawled out of 
its burrow and wriggled about until its tenaciously clinging and 
doubled-up foe stung it. The wasp, however, perhaps owing to 
the unwelcome coating of juice on her body, released her hold 
before the grub had become quiet. It is to be noted that although 
this wasp handles her victims more easily than does her slenderer 
darker relative, she does not reduce them to permanent immo- 
bility like the latter. One Cicindela which had been stung, but 
unsuccessfully oviposited on by M. punctata lived for five weeks 
thereafter. 
The egg is not pearly white as in the first species, but is lightly 
suffused with carneous or flesh color. It is, moreover, secured 
longitudinally on the underside of the third thoracic segment, 
the head end of the egg being anterior. Its incubation period is 
longer than that of striatella; two eggs under observation each re- 
quired about 72 hours to hatch, the larvae crawling out of the 
egg-shells. None was reared through the larval stage, but sev- 
eral cocoons were dug out of the soil by Filipinos. The cocoons 
resemble those of the other species in being similarly provided 
with a cephalic collar. The winter season is passed in this stage. 
Methoca ichneumonides Latreille of Europe completely or al- 
most completely paralyzes her prey. The egg is laid transversely 
behind one of the posterior coxae, and from eighteen to twenty- 
eight days elapse from oviposition to the spinning of the cocoon. 
Methoca stygia Say of Eastern United States and Canada 
usually only partially paraly zes her prey, so that it again becomes 
rather active. The egg is laid as in M. ichneumonides. 
Methoca striatella Williams of the Philippines completely para- 
lyzes her prey. The egg is placed more or less longitudinally 
on the underside of one of the abdominal segments. From seven 
