POTENT PERSONALITIES— WASPS AND HORNETS 



71 



When a female 

 returns with a 

 load of pollen the 

 face disappears 

 at once. The lit- 

 tle guard has 

 slipped into an 

 anteroom just in- 

 side to let her 

 pass. When she 

 has entered, up 

 pops the face 

 again. 



The females, 

 with unremitting 

 toil, fill several 

 cells with pollen 

 and honey and 

 lay an egg in 

 each. These little 

 cells are often 

 raided by various 

 kinds of robbers, 

 most brazen of 

 which are close 

 relatives of Halic- 

 tus, as for in- 

 stance Sphecodes 

 (Plate I, fig- 

 ure 2.) 



The Sphecodes 

 are incapable 

 of honest labor. 

 They cannot car- 

 ry pollen because 

 they have no pol- 

 len baskets. And 

 they do not need 

 to, because they 

 have learned to 

 appropriate for 

 their own young 

 the little stores 

 laid up by the in- 

 dustrious Halic- 



tus mothers. This they do in the most ruth- 

 less fashion. 



If a Sphecodes finds its entr\' into a 

 Halictus burrow blocked by a guard and is 

 unable to seize it by the head, it retreats a 

 little distance, tunnels into the burrow, 

 comes up behind the guard, and kills it. 

 Then, one by one as they appear, the 

 other tenants of the burrow are murdered 

 and thrown out. After this wholesale 

 assassination the thug proceeds to lay 

 its eggs in the fully furnished but unpro- 

 tected cells. 



Phnlntriph h^ FdninL \\ i^herd 

 A YOUTHFUL READER OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BROUGHT 

 THIS UNUSUAL hornets' NEST TO THE EDITOR'S ATTENTION 



His interest iired by nature articles in The Magazine, Thomas S. Murray 

 wrote, from the home of his uncle, John T. Magness, Jr., near Fallston, Mary- 

 land: "I have read your books quite a lot. . . . We have, on a window, a hor- 

 nets' nest — one could say a perfect cross section of a hornets' nest. . . . You 

 can easily see the little hornets being fed; in fact, every move that is made by 

 old hornets and their young. If you are interested in this, you may come and 

 take pictures, as you will find it is just about perfect." This photograph and 

 the two on the opposite page resulted. Tom's sister Betty is watching the nest. 



Not only the pollen and honey, but the 

 plump little baby bees themselves are 

 much sought after. The chief baby killer 

 is a handsome velvet ant, really a wing- 

 less wasp with a very long and exception- 

 ally potent sting — Pseiidoniethoca jrigida 

 (Plate VII, upper, right, facing burrow). 



If a velvet ant approaches a burrow 

 guarded by a female, and there are other fe- 

 males within, the guard rushes out and grap- 

 ples with it. The velvet ant is too heavily 

 armored to be injured, so either the bee is 

 killed or the velvet ant escapes. If the 



