46 
Some Solitary Wasps oe Texas. 
fact. The hunting and stinging habit of Bembex may readily be 
observed by watching a pile of horse-droppings near a Bembex col- 
ony. Flies collect and a wasp soon comes along to collect flies. 
She buzzes furiously about and the timid flies instinctively creep 
away as if to hide from their hereditary mortal enemy. The wasp 
makes a dozen or more circuits in the wildest zig-zag fashion darting 
again and again at flies on the dung-heap. Flights of this kind 
alternate with periods of rest on the sand near by, where the wasp 
stops to wash her face -and smooth her wings while the motion of 
her abdomen betokens the rapid breathing occasioned by the stren- 
uous exercise. After a number of trials, usually many, Bembex 
succeeds in pouncing on a fly. Quick as a flash the wasp is off for 
her nest with her victim. The operation is performed so prickly 
that it is utterly impossible to determine how the fly is captured 
and stung. I therefore captured a fly and pinned it down. Bembex 
returned, took hold of the fly with her legs and at the same time 
arched her abdomen under and stung the fly on the under surface 
of the thorax. The fly failing to yield to her efforts, the wasp im- 
mediately rose, caught sight of another fly and succeeded in cap- 
turing it. After a few moments she was back and attacked my fly as 
before. I then removed the pin. The wasp took up the dead fly four 
times, rejecting it each time after having risen several feet in the air. 
It did not take her long to And out. that there was something wrong 
with her capture. 
A wasp will return to the same hunting grounds until her larder 
is filled for the day. I have seen one wasp carry off as many as eight 
flies in quick succession. A number of times, too, I have amused 
myself by allowing a wasp to take a dead fly from my hand, so that 
I could feel the active little creature as well as observe its every 
movement. Two wasps of a species cannot agree to hunt together 
at the same place — -they will quarrel in angry tones until one will 
withdraw and priority seems, in vespine races, to be the claim usu- 
ally recognized. 
But the tiny black Notoglossa with her red-tipped abdomen will 
pay no attention to the big Bembex buzzing about. Though scarecly 
a quarter of an inch in length she hunts much like her comparatively 
gigantic congener. Her prey consists of gnats and other very small 
flies which she catches with greater facility than Bembex catches 
her prey. I have seen Notoglossa t exanus resfl on horses’ feet and 
“loaf around” for hours, apparently on the lookout for her quarry. 
.On one occasion I saw a tiny wasp appear repeatedly among a swarm 
of gnats that had gathered around a sore on my horse’s ear. 
