220 
Psyche 
[December 
A NOTE ON THE NESTING HABITS OF 
TACHYTES DISTINCTUS Sm. 
By Phil Rau. 
St. Louis, Missouri 
A bank at Creve Coeur Lake, composed of sand and soil, 
contained in a space of six by twelve feet, five nests of this 
species, on August 16, 1922. All of these domiciles had been 
established in burrows or openings made by other creatures 
or objects. Two nests were within the burrows made by rodents, 
one in an opening left in the soil by a disintegrating root, one in a 
crack in the bank, and the last in an opening made by a half 
buried sheet of tin. The mother wasp in each case gained access 
to her nest by these openings, which were unmodified and quite 
inconspicuous. 
A careful study of these mothers revealed that it is the 
habit of these wasps to approach the opening by flight, ac- 
companied by a noisy hum that resembles somewhat that of a 
horse-fly. She drops into her tunnel without preliminary search, 
or a pause at the doorway, but in a very businesslike manner 
she plunges in, remains a moment, then flies out and dashes off 
again. The same quickness characterises her movements, 
whether she is empty-handed or burdened with prey. 
The prey is always a long-horned grasshopper of the species 
Orchelimum vulgar e Harr^. It is carried on the under side of 
her bod}q held in position by her legs, and despite the fact that 
its size equals or sometimes exceeds her own, she has no difficulty 
in managing it, and is not even compelled to readjust it before 
entering the burrow. She does not experience the difficulty 
that many wasps do in entering the burrow with a large parcel, 
since the openings are always large. 
The activities of one mother were watched closely, during 
which time she brought in four grasshoppers after hunts of 65, 
55, 32 and 33 minutes respectively, and she took from three to 
five minutes each time to store them after she entered the burrow. 
^The wasp was identified by Mr. S. A. Rohwer, and the hopper by Mr. 
A. N. Caudell. 
