THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Colors— Yellow and black. 



There is a very large digger-wasp, almost two 

 inches long (the Stizus grmidis of Say, Fig. 3), 

 whose peculiar habit it is to provision its 

 nest with the entire body of one of these lo- 

 custs. It first, like most digger-wasps, digs a 

 hole in the ground, by way of nest, then catches 

 a locust, stings it just enough to stupefy it, hut 

 not enough to kill it, and drags it into the hole 

 which has been already prepared to receive it. 

 Having thus furnished a sufficiency of food for 

 its future offspring, prepared in such an ingeni- 

 ous manner that it will keep fresh for a long 

 time without a particle of salt or saltpetre, it 

 deposits a single egg in the nest, closes up the 

 nest with earth, and then flies off to repeat the 

 above laborious process over and over again, 

 till its stock of eggs is exhausted. Before many 

 days the ^gg hatches out into a little soft, white, 

 legless larva, which gradually devours the body 

 of the living locust. At length, after having be- 

 come full-fed, the larva spins a membranous co- 

 coon, inside which it passes the winter, and the 

 following spring develops into a perfect digger- 

 wasp, to repeat the same wonderful cycle of 

 operations year after year, and century after 

 century. 



To some, perhaps, all this may sound like a 

 traveler's tale. But let any such incredulous 

 person examine at this time of the year the com- 

 mon " mud-dabs " that maybe found in any out- 

 building, and he will find bnt another edition of 

 the process recapitulated above ; the only differ- 

 ence being that the mother wasp that constructs 

 these mud-dabs makes its nest above ground in- 

 stead of underground, and provisions it with 

 some ten or a dozen spiders in place of a single 

 locust. 



The species of Stiziis referred to above is 

 rather an uncommon insect, but, as I happen to 

 know, it occurs from Pennsylvania to the region 

 west of the Mississippi. What is more likely, 

 then, than that one of these wasps, with a squall- 



ing locust in its grasp, should two or three times 

 every year light upon a human being, and that, 

 upon being brushed off, or otherwise harshly 

 treated, it should retaliate after the fashion of 

 all female wasps, by stinging the offender ? Of 

 course tlie effects of the sting of so gigantic a 

 species of wasp would, in all probability, be very 

 severe ; for instance, a lump on the neck as big 

 as a mail's fist produced in two minutes. And 

 of course, if the locust happened to be squalling 

 loudly at the time of the sting, the wound in- 

 flicted would be pretty sure to be laid at its 

 door. 



If, on the other hand, we persist in believing 

 that it is the female locust herself that stings in 

 such pases as these, why do we not hear of 

 tliousands of persons being stung by locusts 

 every year? There are millions upon millions 

 of locusts in the woods this summer, butting 

 madly up against men, women, and children 

 every hour of the day. Surel)"^, if the females 

 were physically capable of stinging, instead of 

 half a dozen such cases, we should hear of thou- 

 sands upon thousands of them throughout the 

 infested districts. Locusts must be to the full 

 as numerous there as bees. If one insect can 

 sting as well as the other, why are not locust 

 stings as common as bee stings? 



The Bnghunter in Trouble— More about Locusts- 

 Carpenter Bees and their Habits— Mason Bees and 

 their Habits— The Precautions which the latter 

 take against their Insect Foes. 



JusE 18th. 

 Early in the morning we arrive at our desti- 

 nation, the beautiful city of Alton, in South 

 Illinois. Finding, on inquiry at his office, that 

 friend Flagg, the excellent Secretary of the Illi- 

 nois State Horticultural Society, will not be in 

 town to-day, I determine to hire a horse and 

 buggy, and drive out to Dr. Hull's fruit farm. 

 On applying for a team at the nearest livery 

 stable, and offering to pay in advance, seeing 

 that I am a stranger to them, I am told that I 

 can get no team there, unless I can give satis- 

 factoi'y references to some responsible citizen of 

 Alton. " They have had two hired teams stolen 

 from them by strangers witliin the last two or 

 three weeks, and they do not intend to lose an- 

 other one in that way." Here is a pretty kettle 

 of fish ! The Acting State Entomologist of Illi- 

 nois can not " run liis face " for a horse and bug- 

 gy, and is manifestly suspected of being a horse- 

 thief! Luckily for my credit, I bethink mc of 

 friend Flagg's clerk ; I rush to Ms office, and he 

 agrees at once to become bail for my honesty. 



