VESPID WASPS ( EUMENES CURVATA ) 
ATTRACTED TO SMOKE 
By Charles T. Brues 
Biological Laboratories, Harvard University 
Smoke is not ordinarily attractive to insects, but certain flies of 
the family of Clythiidae have been noted by several entomologists 
to be strongly attracted by the smoke from burning weeds or even 
by chimney smoke. Kessel has recently published an account 1 of 
the American smoke flies which belong to the genus Microsania. The 
genus is represented by several species in Europe, two in North 
America, and others in Australia, |New Zealand and equatorial 
Africa. From Kessel’s account of his own observations made in 
California and his well documented summary of observations re- 
ported by others, it is evident that all the known species of Micro- 
sania throughout the world are irresistably attracted to smoke. 
Smoke from varied sources causes the flies to congregate, as the 
numerous observations relate to smouldering fires of vegetable 
debris, smouldering heath fires, forest fires, smouldering bonfires, 
and the dense smoke cloud from the chimney of a barbecue. Their 
occurrence on the tent of a camp in the woods is undoutedly a sim- 
ilar response to a camp-fire. 
My own observations on the vespid wasp, Eumenes curvata 
Saussure, 2 were made in the Southern Philippines, near Dumaguete, 
on Negros Island. This is a common wasp in the locality, frequently 
building its clay nests attached to walls covered with shingles made 
of the leaf sheaths of abaca or on bamboo slats on porches and in 
rooms open to continuous access from without. The flying wasps 
were frequently noticed flying in the porch and adjoining room of 
a cottage where we were living, in the hills above Dumaguete at an 
elevation of about 1500 feet. 
When we were smoking on the porch it was noted on many oc- 
casions that the wasps on the way back and forth to their nests 
hovered in lanes of drifting cigarette smoke. This is obviously very 
1 Kessel, E. M., American Smoke Flies. Wasmann Collector, vol. 7, pp. 
23-30 (1947). 
2 This and the other identifications of Vespidae were kindly made by 
Dr. J. Bequaert. 
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