10 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



t/ 



A POTTER- WASP. 



(Odynerus flavipes? Fabr.) 



In our ai-ticle ou " Wasps and their Habits," 

 ill Vol. I, jSTo. 7, of the AM:EKrcA>f Entomolo- 

 gist, we showed how the various Ijinds of soli- 

 tary Wasps provisioned their nests with differ- 

 ent kinds of insects and spiders— how they first 

 stung these little creatures so as to paralj^ze but 

 not to kill them — and how the egg deposited by 

 the mother-wasp, along with this living but dor- 

 mant prey, snbsequently hatched out into a soft 

 defenseless larva, which fed at its ease upon the 

 living provisions accumulated and stored up 

 with such provident care by the author of its 

 being. On page 138 we cursorily referred to 

 the genus Odi/nerus^a, very extensive group of 

 the Solitary True Wasps, of which there are no 

 less than ninety-nine described species found in 

 North America. Several European species be- 

 longing to this genus are known to provision 

 their nests with green lepidopterous larviB, some 

 of them excavating holes in sandy banks, some 

 building their nests in the interstices of stone 

 walls, and some selecting for that purpose wood 

 that had been honey-combed by boring larvte. 

 We have a small North American species in our 

 collection, which had made two nests in the 

 central hole of a common wooden spool upon 

 which cotton had been wound, closing up each 

 end of the hole with tempered clay and separa- 

 ting one nest from the other by a partition of 



[Fig. i.} 



Colors — (c) black and yellow. 



the same material. (See Fig. 4, a, b.) For this 

 specimen and the spool in which the nests had 

 been constructed we are indebted to Miss Ma- 

 rion Hobart, of Port Byron, N. Ills. Quite re- 

 cently we have received a much larger species, 

 which we figure herewith {Odynerus flavipes? 

 Fabr., Fig. 4, c) , from Mr. E. Daggy, of Tuscola, 

 Central Illinois, with the following account of 

 its operations: 



Enclosed I seud you five small worms, one 

 brown and four green ones. They came to my 

 notice as follows : I was sitting in the sanctum 

 of the Journal office this morning, and saw a 



yellow jacket or wasp deposit one of these 

 worms in a hole in the top of a common black 

 wooden ink-stand which was iipon the table 

 just before me. After the wasp had coiled it 

 down nicely it left, and I of course examined to 

 see what was done. I saw there were more than 

 the single worm, so I left it, to await results. 

 Presently the wasp returned, but not with a 

 worm, and worked some little time with its 

 head in the hole where the worms were. After 

 it left, I noticed that the hole was sealed over 

 with mud; presently it returned with still more 

 mud, and thrice this operation was performed. 

 On examining the contents of the hole in the 

 ink-stand, I found, to my astonishment, thirty- 

 five worms in it, doubtless the work of the same 

 wasp. I send you five of these, wasp and all, 

 as I have just captured it since I commenced 

 writing to you. 



It has been supposed by some entomologists 

 that Wasps always provision the same nest with 

 the same species of insect. But the five worms 

 forwarded to ub by Mr. Daggy, which averaged 

 about one-third of an inch in length, although 

 they were all the larvse of small moths, mostly 

 leaf-rollers, yet belonged to at least three dis- 

 tinct species. Along with them was sent a 

 Wasp-larva which had attained maturity and 

 already spun its cocoon, showing that there 

 must have been more than one nest built by the 

 mother wasp in the hole in the ink-stand, and 

 that the tenant of the bottommost nest had al- 

 ready consumed its private and peculiar stock 

 of larvoe and was preparing to lie up for the 

 winter. In the cotton-spool, which was less 

 than one and a half inches long, there were, as 

 we have seen, no less than two distinct nests, 

 although both ends of the central hole had to be 

 filled up with clay to fit it for the purpose for 

 which it was employed. 



In the drawing which we have given above 

 of this Potter Wasp (Fig. 4 c), the wings are 

 represented as fully expanded. In repose, how- 

 ever, they are always doubled over upon them- 

 selves in the singular manner shown in figure 

 96, page 123 of our First Volume. This is a 

 remarkable peculiarity of the True Wasps 

 {Diplopteryga), not to be met with in a single 

 species of the Digger Wasps (^o«so>-es), although 

 these last have precisely the same general habits 

 as the Solitary True Wasps, to which our spe- 

 cies appertains. The habits of the Social True 

 Wasps, such as the Yellow Jackets, the Bald- 

 faced Hornet, etc.. are entirely different from 

 those of the Solitai-y True Wasps; and yet their 

 wings are folded in repose in exactly the same 

 manner. 



ly The publishers of those papers which ad- 

 vertise to club with ours, will please take notice 

 of our change of subscription price. 



