IX. SOME ENEMIES OF THE ORTHOPTERA. 
(a) Larra Americana (Fox), and Her Crickets. 
The first specimen of this species which I chanced upon was dig- 
ging her nest on the edge of a small precipice at the bottom of 
which lay three crickets, all kicking violently, one even almost able 
to crawl away. Her manner of digging was peculiar among the 
solitary wasps I have seen. While she proceeded in part by scratch- 
ing the dirt back under her much like Pompilus and with equal 
vigor and nervousness, she pushed out the loads she accumulated 
in a different manner. Other wasps use chiefly their hind legs and 
abdomen; but this specimen used her head and front legs, im- 
provising of these a kind of scraper. To take on a load of sand 
the wasp stretched out her legs, lay down flat and pushed her head 
in the sand and backed out. On account of this method of digging, 
the burrow resulting was wide and low, so as to make room for the 
outstretched legs. 
There was something wrong with this individual of L. Amer- 
icana. She soon lost interest in her work, ran around looking into 
other nests and other holes in the ground. She acted in a most 
demented manner. Her visits to her old nests and to her crickets 
became fewer and fewer and she finally remained away altogether. 
My second specimen I followed to her nest on the nearly vertical 
bank of a creek near Austin. She was carrying a large cricket in 
her mandibles and was moving along in jumps of a yard or more. 
She alighted at the bottom of the embankment and walked up its 
steep side entering a large hole, from the further end of which she 
had dug her nest. In this way T saw her carry in four crickets 
of various sizes. Two days later I found the nest closed with earth, 
though not quite to its mouth. I dug up this nest as well as another 
close by and found both to have been of about the same shape and 
dimensions. A tunnel five-sixteenths inch in diameter ran into the 
embankment at a slight inclination downward for a distance of 
four inches. It ended in a dilatation, one of the pockets of the 
nest. Just in front of this the tunnel branched off for a slight dis- 
tance and lead into another pocket which was the larger as well 
as the one first made. In this six crickets had been stored, all of 
which but one (which was dead) were not only alive but positively 
