- small caterpillars, small moths, etc., and the motlier always rejects : : : 
a 
' not been appropriated, is sufficient proof, if proof were wanting, 
. it without better evidence. Larrada and Sphex, which generally — 
_ thus diverge in habit also diverge in structure from t 
ground, Mr. Smith has shown that one species (A. variegata) 
230 < _ ZOOLOGY. 
record to indicate that any other digger wasp does so. The fact 
that_old mud dabs are often found, in which the wasp egg had 
failed to hatch, and in which the spider food, in consequence, had 
that Pelopzeus never does so. i a; i 
The habits of Polistes, as I think. every one who has observed 
them must admit, are absolutely incompatible with Mr. Uhler’s 
conclusions. They have recently been most admirably set forth 
by Siebold in his last work on Parthenogenesis.* 
A large weather-worn impregnated female or queen founds the 
colony in spring, by the construction of a peduncled, gray, paper- 
like cell, at the bottom of. which an egg is deposited. The cell is — 
enlarged as fast as the larva increases in size, and other cells are, 
meanwhile, built adjoining the central one. The young are — 
always fed with the masticated flesh of other insects, such as 
the food found in the stomachs of these herbivorous species. The | 
cells are never closed until the full grown larva closes them. The. 
first generation consists of females only ; or, more properly, female 
workers differing from the workers of Apis in being always fertile, 
but, from necessity, parthenogetically so. They have precisely 
the same structure as the queen, but are distinguished by their 
smaller size and brighter color, especially of the wings. By ther 
aid the nests increase in size, or new nests are built, and in the » i 
fall of the year the larger females and the males appear- Oces- 
sionally honey is found in the cells, but its use is not fully under- 
st cin 
Now have we a species so divergent from this habit as to hor : 
the very different habit of Pelopæus? For my own part I have | 
too much faith in the unity of habit in the same genus to believe © 
burrow in the ground, present exceptional species which a 2 
nests above ground in the curl of a leaf,t but the species wbich 
he typical 
genus. Again in Agenia which generally builds mud cells above 
burrows in the ground. Yet these exceptional differences in 
habit of the same genus do not begin to compare with be 
* Beiträge zur Parthenogenesis der Arthropoden, 1871. 
.a : tPackard’s “ Guide,” pp. 165 and 169 
