328 
Psyche 
[December 
Methods 
The annularis colonies collected were built over the water, primar¬ 
ily under branches of bald cypress, Taxodium distichum. Plastic bags 
were carefully slipped around the nests, and the bag was tied shut and 
placed in a cooler. The wasps were killed by freezing, and the parasit¬ 
ized males preserved in alcohol. The abdominal sclerites were sepa¬ 
rated with a dissecting needle while the wasps were examined at 20X 
to locate all exserted pallidus, including collapsed male puparia. 
Statistical analysis was performed using chi-square tests applied to 
contingency tables as described by Siegel (1956). Considerable lump¬ 
ing of data was necessary to perform the test in some categories. 
Results 
Sex ratio of Polistes annularis: 
Sex ratios of both wasp and parasite in this study are of course the 
ratios only at the time of collection in the life cycle of each. The ratio 
of male to female annularis at Newnan’s Lake was 1.04:1 on 23 Oct. 
but decreased to 0.21:1 on 12 Nov. 1979 as the males died or left the 
nests at a greater rate than the females. Few of the wasps were 
foraging during the collection period. Therefore one would expect 
parasitized and unparasitized males to be otherwise equal with 
respect to predation pressure and energy consumption, and the par¬ 
asitized individuals to die sooner. The per cent of parasitized males 
should decrease with time, but the data available for 4 dates show no 
clear trend. The per cent of males parasitized on 23 Oct. was 2.1, on 26 
Oct. 8.4, on 5 Nov. 5.6, and on 12 Nov. 2.5, from 529, 309, 321, and 
279 males collected on those days respectively. 
Number of Xenos pallidus in individual male Polistes annularis: 
Table 1 shows the number of male wasps with various combina¬ 
tions of male and female parasites. Only 1 host had as many as 6 
female pallidus, while 6 had 6-8 males, possibly indicating that the 
male parasite extracts less nourishment from the host, because males 
are smaller. Bohart (1941) stated that males may decrease host survi¬ 
val due to evaporation of water from the empty puparia and invasion 
of fungi into the puparia. In the present study all but 6 of the 423 male 
X. pallidus had emerged. Fungus invasion did not appear to be a 
maj or cause of host mortality. Only a few of the puparia were slightly 
