48 
provisions it with locusts which she catches while on the wing and stu- 
pefies them by repeatedly thrusting her sting into their bodies, the point 
selected for thus stinging them being in nearly every instance the under- 
side of the thorax between the first two pairs of legs. After being stung 
a few times the locust becomes motionless, and the wasp gets astride 
of her victim, seizes it by the antennae, and drags it to her burrow, 
occasionally leaving it and going off in search of her burrow; after find- 
ing it she again returns to the locust and drags it along by the antennae 
as before. After it is safely landed in the bottom of the burrow, the 
wasp deposits one or more eggs upon it, then comes to the mouth of 
the burrow and with her fore feet scratches the burrow fuli of earth, 
somewhat as a dog would do. AH of her movements are very rapid, and 
it is very rare to find her idle, being almost the whole time, at least 
during the warmer portion of the day, engaged in searching for or drag- 
ging along and burying the locusts. I frequently saw one of these 
wasps thus dragging along a locust, and although other species of 
locusts were present she always selected a Devastating Locust for her 
victim. 
I also saw another kind of wasp, known as Polistes variatus Cresson, 
feeding upon a recently killed Devastating Locust, while several other 
specimens of the same kind of wasp were busily looking among the 
weeds, as if in search of locusts. This wasp is of about the same size 
as the Priononyx, referred to above, but is of a light- brown color, vari- 
ously marked with pale yellow. I have occasionally found the nest of 
this wasp beneath pieces of wood lying upon the ground. The nest is 
constructed of a bluish gray, papery substance, is of a circular form, and 
measures about 2 inches in diameter. It is suspended by a rather slen- 
der pedicel of the same papery substance, and the cells are on the un- 
derside and open downwards; they are filled with a yellowish mass, 
which probably consists of the masticated bodies of the locusts. 
Besides these two species, I have seen a third kind of wasp, the 
Tachytes rufofasciata Cr., dragging along an apparently lifeless locust, 
which she evidently intended to bury, to serve as food for her young, 
just as the Priononyx described above was observed to do. This wasp 
is considerably smaller than the Priononyx, and has the abdomen and 
a large portion of the legs pale brown. 
Besides these wasps, the only other kind of predaceous insect that I 
saw feeding upon locusts is a large slender-bodied, two-winged fly, 
known as Proctacanthus milbertii Macq. This fly is of a brownish gray 
or drab color, and the largest specimens measure nearly 1£ inches in 
length; the legs are stout and covered with spines; the stout, black 
proboscis projects forward from the lower portion of the head, and the 
latter on the sides and lower part in front is thickly clothed with rather 
long whitish hairs. Biding along by the side of a barbed- wire fence in 
Tehama County, on the 15th of August, I saw a great many of these 
flies resting upon the upper side of the top wire, while an occasional 
