128 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. XV 



MATING HABITS OF SPHECIUS SPECIOSUS, THE CICADA- 

 KILLING WASP. 



By Wm. T. Davis, Staten Island, N. Y. 



On July 31, 1919, the writer was on the grassy lane leading 

 down to the shore of Long Pond, south of Wading River, Long 

 Island, N. Y., when he observed many males of Sphecius speciosus 

 flying about. They would station themselves on the tops of 

 plants, or on small bushes, and when a female came near they 

 would fly after her. Each male had a particular flower head, or 

 other lookout, to which he would return after chasing a female,^ 

 and some that were watched went back to their chosen stations 

 with great regularity for over a half hour. The mating takes 

 place in the air and is very brief. Twelve of these matings were 

 observed. Sometimes the pair fell to the ground, but flew away 

 quickly. 



On the third of August the pond was again visited, and the 

 wasps were still about the same place on the grassy lane, and the 

 males chasing the females. Several of them were observed to fly 

 from their place of out-look, seize a female in mid air, and then 

 after leaving her return to their particular station. While no 

 tunnels dug by Sphecius could be found where the mating was 

 going on, in other places, higher and dryer, there were several, 

 and in one instance it appeared from the rounded groove at the 

 opening of the burrow, that a cicada had been brought in. The 

 greatest activity in collecting cicadas on Long Island occurs about 

 the middle of August or a little later, and many cicadas have, 

 fortunately for the species, commenced to lay eggs before their 

 sudden demise. The female Sphecius seeks them, not by the 

 song of the males as is sometimes stated, but by flying care- 

 fully along the limbs of trees and up and down the trunks, 

 and so catches both sexes. In some of the burrows dug out, 

 there were many more females than males. When a cicada is 

 discovered and stung by a wasp, the pair sometimes fall to the 

 ground, but often the wasp succeeds in holding fast to both the 

 tree and the cicada. If the cicada is too heavy to be transported 

 directly to the burrow, the wasp climbs up the trunk of a tree 



