THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



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dig- their holes is very reinarkablc, aud they 

 disappear under ground in a very short time. 

 Audubon has commented with wonder upon 

 the fact, that our Ameiican badger can bury 

 himself in the earth in one minute;* but we 

 ■ once saw the female of one of our commonest 

 Digger Wasps (Jfi/zine 6-cinct(i, Fabr.) bury 

 herself in about half a minute in the sandy 

 loam of a wagon-road. 



In illustration of the habits of the same ]51ue 

 Digger "Wasp, which was referred to a few 

 lines above, wewill now quote a very graphic 

 account, furnished to us by Mr. George W. 

 Smith, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, of the mode 

 in which this insect effaces all traces of the 

 hole or nest which it has just provisioned- 

 Unfortunately, Mr. Smith was prevented from 

 seeing the Wasp actually carrying the doomed 

 spider underground ; but, judging from analogy, 

 the nest had been dug beforehand, and the spider 

 was carried in, tlie egg laid, and the entrance to 

 the nest effectually closed up during his brief 

 absence. On such a subject as this, we prefer, 

 whenever possible, quoting the evidence of non- 

 professional observers to stating facts observed 

 by ourselves; because, in the latter case, it 

 might be supposed by some that we were palm, 

 ing off '•■ travelers' tales " upon the reader. 



On the afternoon of the 23d of last June, while carry- 

 ing a pail of water to my pony, and passing by a small 

 sand-heap covered with weeds, I saw a wasp of a blue 

 color and the size of a hornet, with a spider as large as 

 itself in its mouth, alight on one of the weeds and I'mm 

 that to the ground, i watered ray pony and hurrieil 

 back, In time to see the curious antics performed by the 

 wasp. 

 I saw it scraping away a small pile of dirt, which 

 / appeared to be sand newly dug up. It scraped with 

 ' its front pair of feet and then pushed the dirt it had 

 scraped with them lurtlicr on with its other pairs of 

 feet. Then it commenced patting this dirt with its ab- 

 ilomen, in the same manner as we would ram a ncsvly- 

 set post. It would scrape a little ami pound agaiii, 

 and then throw on more ilirt. It pounded fjuite forci- 

 bly and very fast. It kept up these actions until the 

 spot was quite like all the rest of the ground. It then 

 flew away to a pear-tree and cleaned itself. 



When the wasp was gone, I opened the place where 

 it had pounded so much, and in a hole about an inch 

 deep I found the spider, and under it a small white 

 speck, which I suppose was an egg. The spiiler did ' 

 not iiijpear to be entirely dead. 



There is another and a much handsomer species 

 of an allied genus of Wasps, the Ichneumon- 

 like Digger Wasp, (Sphex ichnetnnonen , Linn.), 

 of which we herewith present a drawing, 

 at Figure 99. 



Unlike the Blue Digger Wasp, which is rather 

 a southern than a northern species, it is common 

 everywhere in the northern States, but instead 

 of lighting chiefly upon the ground, as does its 

 indigo-blue compeer, it occurs more frequently 

 upon flowers. Dr. Packard, in his Guide to 



•Audubon and Bachmin, History of Quadrupeds, I, p. 3G5 



[Fipr. fm.] 



Colov.s — Rust-red , with dense 



liuliescence. 



the Studi/ of Insects, (pp. 167 — 8), has published 

 the following very interesting and original obser- 

 vations on the habits of this species, which with 

 his permission we reprint : 



In the last week of July,and dufing August and early 

 in September, we noticed nearly a dozen of these wasps 

 busily engaged in digging their holes in a gravely walk. 

 In previous seasons they were more numerous, burrow- 

 ing into grassy banlcs near the walk. The holes were 

 four to SIX inches deep. In beginning the hole the wasp 

 dragged away with its teeth a stone one-half as large as 

 itself to a distance of eight inches from the hole, while 

 it pushed away othei-s with its heail. In beginning its 

 burrow it used its large and powerful jaws almo.-it en- 

 tirelv, digging in to the depth of an inch in live minutes, 

 complctiiig its hole in about half an hour. After having 

 inserti'd its lieail into the hole, where it loosened the 

 earth with its jaws and threw it out of the hole with its 

 jaws and fore legs, it would retreat backwards and push 

 the dirt still farther ba.'k IVoni l!u' mouth of tlie cell with 

 its hind legs. In eases where the lartlier |U'ogressof the 

 work was stopped by a stone too large lor the wasp to 

 remove or dig aroimd, it would abandon it and begin a 

 new bole . Just as soon as it reached the required depth 

 the wasp flew a few feet to an adjoining bank, and fall- 

 ing upon an OrcJieh'mum nihjiiiv \>y (I. iintc!h\{\.\\0 com- 

 mon grass-green catydid-like grassliii\)pers, aliout an 

 inch long,] stung ami' pariilyzedil instantly, bore it to 

 its nest, aud was out of siglit in a moment, and while in 

 the bottom of its hole mu.st have de|)osited its egg in its 

 victim. Re-appearing it began to draw the sand back 

 into the hole, scr.atching it in quite briskly by jneans of 

 its spiny fore tarsi, while standing on its two hind pairs 

 of legs. It thus threw in half an inch of dirt upon the 

 grasshopper and then tlcw ott'. In this way one Sphex 

 will make two or three sueh holes in one afternoon. 

 The walk was hard and eonipovi.il of a coarse sea-gravel, 

 and the rapiditv with whieli the wasp worked her way 

 in with tooth aiid nail was marvclou>. 



There is another genus of Digger Wasps 

 {Ammophila), closely allied to the preceding, 

 but distinguishable at once from it by the abdo- 

 men being much slenderer and attached by a 

 much longer stem or peduncle. Of this genus 

 there are about forty diflerent species found in 

 North America, some of which resemble each 

 other so closely that it is not always easy to tell 

 one from another. All those that are known to 

 us are peculiarly fond of alighting upon flowers, 

 where on a hot summer's day dozens of them 

 may often be observed in copulation, the amor- 

 ous males firmly embracing the females round 



