334 Trans. Acad, Sci. of St. Lows 
Rhigopridius tucumanus Heller, from Argentina, has 
been bred from the tuber of a potato.’’ 
The weevil makes so small a burden that the Cerceris 
can carry it very easily and swiftly. In all of the cases 
which I could observe closely, the wasp carried the prey, 
clasped in her middle legs, with the ventral side of the 
weevil against the under side of her own body, and in 
some cases it appeared that she grasped its proboscis 
in her jaws. She drops her burden quickly if disturbed. 
One wasp returned with her weevil under her body, and 
as she found difficulty in finding her hole, which had ac- 
cidentally been covered, I pressed close to see her method 
of search. She braced herself with her hind feet while 
she dug in the mound of dust with her free fore-feet. 
Not gaining much headway in this manner, she dropped 
her weevil and then worked faster with four feet. Thus 
she eventually found her hole on the other side of the 
mound. Meanwhile, I exchanged the weevil which she 
had laid down, for one borrowed from another wasp. 
Several times she went into the hole, as if to make sure 
that everything was right, and came out again. At last 
she approached the weevil, took it in her mouth, rolled 
over and stung it. In my eagerness I came too close and 
frightened her away. After ten minutes more of nervous 
coming and going, she again took the weevil in her mouth, 
curled her body almost into a circle in order to reach the 
prey with her sting, propping herself up meanwhile on 
her two protruding wings, while she inserted her sting 
on the ventral side of the victim and kept it there for 
almost a minute, her abdomen pulsating all the time. All 
this happened on the mound of loose soil, only a half 
inch from her hole, which was now open; nevertheless 
she took up her weevil, flew into the air, circled about a 
