56 
Some Solitary Wasps of Texas. 
(d) Alyson Melleus, Say. 
A. melleus is a slender wasp, less than half an inch long, in shape 
and size much like Agenia, the little spider-ravisher. Black is the 
predominating color of her body, her head, antenuae, tip of wings, 
and abdomen having that color, while her thorax and wings are red. 
She is, moreover, easily recognized by the pair of round white spots 
on the sides of her abdomen. She resembles the Agenia mentioned 
also in the easy grace with which she flits from place to place when 
on the hunt, which is mostly done on herbs and bushes. She runs 
swiftly up and down the stems and over the leaves, both the upper 
and the under sides, often darting like a flash to another branch or 
to another plant. 
The species must be rather common in the woods, for I have 
often seen her on the hunt and have several times seen her at 
work on her nest. She always selects the sloping sides of a pit as 
a location for her nest, at least I have never seen it at any other 
place. Fig. 24 is a photograph of the side of a pit perforated by 
holes dug by a number of species of Oxybelus, Alyson , Bembex, and 
others. There is an evident advantage to such a location over the 
usual position of a Bembex nest, which runs down from a level sur- 
face, for Mutillids of various sizes, running around in great num- 
bers, never climb up a sloping surface to find the nests of digger- 
wasps. 
The nest of melleus is always left open, day and night, which 
might give inquilines and parasitic flies a chance to get in. But 
the narrowness of the nest (two or three mm. in diameter) would 
keep out large flies and the great depth (12 inches) would tend to 
prevent smaller flies from finding the store of food. 
The excavation is carried out after the usual manner of wasps, 
the sand being loosened with the mandibles, scratched back with the 
forefeet and kicked out with the hind pair. The work of digging 
the nest is all done at once, though some dirt is brought up from 
time to time after the provisioning has been begun. 
My first specimen, No. 15, alighted in the bottom of the pit 
shown in Fig. 24 and walked over to her nest. It is the habit of 
the species to alight from three inches to a foot from the nest and 
then run over to it. No. 15 carried in her mandibles a small green 
leaf-hopper (Tettigonia bifida. Say). She entered the nest, re- 
mained inside a few seconds and was off again. She returned in 
three minutes with another leaf-hopper and made two more trips 
in seven minutes each by 5 :19 p. m., when I left her. On my ar- 
