Wasps 



Fig. 12. — a, cocoon of Sphe- 

 cms — natural size ; b, en- 

 larged section of pore. 

 (From Insect Ltfe.J 



which can only be surmised. Possibly 

 they are for the respiration of the larva 

 before it transforms to pupa and it re- 

 mains in the cocoon unchanged through 

 the winter, transforming to pupa only 

 the following spring and shortly before 

 the appearance of the true insect. When 

 the adult hatches it gnaws its way out of 

 the cocoon and so on up through the 

 burrow to the surface of the ground, thus 

 accomplishing its life-round in a full year. 

 This big digger wasp is very abundant 

 in mid-summer throughout the southern 

 states. It stings severely, and, it is per- 

 haps needless to say, should be avoided. 



The Social Wasps and their Allies. 



(Super-family Vespoidea.) 



All of the social wasps belong to this super-family, and there 

 are also brought into it a number of solitary wasps, as well as 

 the so-called cuckoo flies of the old family Chrysididae, and some 

 strange insects that were formerly 

 placed in the parasitic family Proc- 

 totrypidae, but which are now 

 made a family by themselves under 

 the name Bethylidae. There are 

 other parasitic groups in this super- 

 family, and it also contains the 

 curious creatures known as cow-kil- 

 lers, cow-ants, solitary ants, or velvet 

 ants of the family Mutillidse, which 

 have solitary habits, but closely re- 

 semble the true ants. All these forms, differing however widely 

 in habit, feed for the most part in their early stages upon other 

 insects or upon the remains of other insects. The only exception 

 is a small group found mainly in tropical regions, which may be 

 termed the honey wasps, of which the old Polistes mellifica of 

 Say, which comes from Mexico, is an example. All of these 



25 



Fig. 13. Polistes pallipes. 

 (After Comsiock.) 



