140 
Tachytes hunts for her prey (Conocephalus vestitus Redt.), 
a very alert and bright-colored short-winged, Xiphidium-like 
grasshopper, on the wing, and her high- pitched buzz is often 
audible when the low-flying wasp is out of sight. Her victim, 
easily subdued, makes a light burden for the wasp, which flies 
away with it faster than the eye can follow; as a consequence I 
found no nest-holes of Tachytes. The wasp was once observed 
to capture a small cricket, a very different insect from her ordi- 
nary prey. She sometimes abandons her victims after stinging 
them—as if in acknowledgment that some mistake had been made. 
The males are very active insects and were most commonly 
found at flowers, particularly those of the verbenaceous tree 
Premna odorata. 
Dicranorhina (Piagetia) lusonensis Rohwer. 
Length 9 mm.: black; forelegs red, wings with a dark blotch. 
dD J dS dD 
Hardly anything appears to be known about the habits of this 
genus, and aside from the remark by Bingham (1897) concern- 
ing a specimen of a Natal Piagetia pinned with a cricket in the 
British Museum, I can find no reference about its biology. 
The Philippine species shows a marked partiality to dwellings, 
and while nothing was discovered about its early stages, the 
adults, which were found throughout the year, frequently entered 
the very open rooms of the Nipa house at which I stayed. Some- 
times when it was growing dusky one would be seen running 
over the curtains, bedding, etc., and one was captured at light. 
One specimen which | observed for some days made a practice of 
following the same route in its frequent trips about the house, 
first running along the railings of the front porch, then flying 
to the back of the house and continuing her journey along the 
outer walls to the porch again. Others performed rather simi- 
larly on one of the buildings at the College of Agriculture nearby. 
It is not improbable that they hunt along these places for crickets 
of some sort. I took very few of these insects on foliage, and 
then always close to buildings. 
The gait of Dicranorhina is peculiar; it runs rather slowly 
as it monotonously visits the same places, the body sloping 
obliquely downwards from head to tail so that the end of the 
body trails or nearly. 
