Wasps 



Fig. 7. — Sphecius speciosus Say carrying 



a Cicada to her burrow. 



(From Insect Life.) 



be emitted. The wasp has caught its victim and with a quick 

 sting has paralyzed it and thrown it into a comatose condition 



from which it never recovers. 

 In this preliminary struggle 

 often both the wasp and its 

 victim fall to the ground and 

 then the wasp begins the la- 

 borious task of dragging its 

 prey back up the tree strad- 

 dling it with its long legs, 

 although the Cicada is bigger 

 than the wasp, and working 

 sometimes for an hour or more 

 until it reaches a height from 

 which it can fly obliquely 

 down to its nest at some dis- 

 tance away. In Washington, 

 the dryer and more elevated portions of the lawns, especially 

 slight terraces along the sides of roadways, are preferred by this 

 wasp for its burrows. Damp earth 

 causes the Cicadas to mould after 

 they have been stored in the burrow. 

 The burrow itself consists of a 

 gently sloping entrance extending 

 for about six inches, when ordina- 

 rily a turn is made at right angles 

 and the excavation is continued for 

 six or eight inches farther, ending 

 in a globular cell an inch and a half 

 in diameter. Frequently a number 

 of branches leave the main burrow 

 at about the same point, each ter- 

 minating in a round cell. Each of 

 these cells contains, along in Au- 

 gust, one or two Cicadas, and in 

 those cells which contain two the 

 larva of the wasp acquires a larger 

 size, and, as the female wasp is a 

 great deal larger than the male, Riley thought that one Cicada is 

 required as food to develop a male and two to develop a female. 



23 



Fig. 8. — Adult Cicada bearing egg 



of the digger wasp, at a. 



(From Bisect Life.) 



