THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



209 



War in the Garden, 



By Allan R. IMcCulloch. 



The Yellow and Black Sand Wasp (Exeirus lateritus) which every year 

 exacts heavy toll from the cicada world. 



[Photo.— .4. li. McCiilloch. 



WHEN the sun is shining his hardest 

 and the eicadas, or screech-bugs, 

 as our American cousins appro- 

 priately call them, are screeching their 

 loudest, the time is ripe for unlimited 

 tragedies. In an old Parramatta gar- 

 den, where the soil is loose and sandy, 

 and oak trees form a thick leafy canopy 

 overhead, the cicada finds everj^thing 

 to his taste. In his larval life, when 

 tunnelling his way through the ground, 

 he finds no difficulty in moving the soil 

 with his powerful front legs in search 

 of food. And later, when he has crept 

 out of his brown, hard skin, and emerged 

 a slim, shiny creature, he has merely 

 to spread his gauzy wings and fly into 

 the nearest tree-top to trill away the 

 few remaining days of his life. So well 

 does it suit him and his kind, and so 

 much noise does he make, that he 

 attracts numerous small boys, who 

 delight to catch and shake him violently 

 in a hot dirty hand, causing him to 

 rattle loudly in protest. Boys and birds 

 and what would seem to be still more 

 dangerous enemies, wasps, harry the 

 poor cicada from the cradle to the grave. 

 In a corner of the garden, a number 

 of Digger-wasps (Exeirus lateritus) have 

 established themselves, appearing year 

 after year to wage war upon the host of 



cicadas living in the trees above them. 

 They burrow deep tunnels in a small 

 space several yards square, and heap 

 up small hillocks of it at the entrance 

 to their subterranean dwellings. Each 

 burrow is about the size of a mouse- 

 hole and the sand excavated from it 

 would fill an ordinary cup four or five 

 times. 



Each year, about the middle of 

 November, when the sun has warmed 

 u]i the earth, they may be seen indus- 

 triously shovelling sand out of the 

 tunnel mouth and scattering it far 

 behind them. Standing firmly on the 

 two hinder pairs of legs, with the ab- 

 domen raised, they turn the front pair 

 inwards till their ti])s almost touch, 

 and scoop away the sand with quick 

 short strokes, throwing it backwards 

 beneath the body. The amount of sand 

 moved at each throw is, of course, small, 

 so one can imagine what a large amount 

 of energy is expended in digging out 

 several tunnels ten to twenty inches 

 long, from which every grain has to be 

 shifted to the surface with many suc- 

 cessive throws, and piled up outside the 

 burrow. 



When a wasp considers its burrow 

 deep enough, it flies off in search of a 

 cicada to entomb within it for the 



