IVASTS. 



The Solitary Wasps. 



(Super-family Sphecoidea.) 



To this group belong nearly all of those insects which are 

 known as the solitary wasps, in contradistinction to the social 

 wasps which form communities and live in nests, usually con- 

 structed of a paper-like substance, and lead very much the same 

 socialistic life which we see in the social bees. The solitary 

 wasps, in the main, form burrows, just as do the solitary bees, 

 construct cells within their burrows and in the cells provide food 

 for their larvae. This food, however, is not the pollen and honey 

 mixture which is found in the cells of the solitary bees, but it is 

 other insects which have been stung and paralyzed by the mother 

 wasp. To this super-family belongs a large assemblage of forms 

 which comprise twelve large families, the habits of all being 

 rather similar. 



Nothing can be more fascinating than the study of the habits 

 of the solitary wasps and no more readable book on a natural 

 history topic was ever prepared, not even excepting the famous 

 Natural History of Selbourne or the general volume of Kirby and 

 Spence's Introduction, than that entitled, "On the Instincts and 

 Habits of the Solitary Wasps," by George W. and Elizabeth G. 

 Peckham, of Milwaukee, published as Bulletin No. 2 of the Wis- 

 consin Geological and Natural History Survey. The Peckhams, 

 already noted for their interesting work on the habits of spiders, 

 and attracted to the study of solitary wasps probably through 

 observing these creatures carry off spiders to stow away in their 

 cells for their young, have spent many summer days in close obser- 

 vation of these industrious, active and most intelligent creatures 

 and have described their observations in the most charming style. 

 They have entered into the lives of the solitary wasps and have 

 shown them to be as interesting in their way as the much-more- 



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