Wasps, Bees, and Ants 
497 
only in rare cases see even the commencement cf the life of the next; the 
progeny for the benefit of which they labor with unsurpassable skill and 
industry being unknown to them. Were such a solicitude displayed by 
ourselves we should connect it with a high sense of duty, and poets and 
moralists would vie in its laudation. But having dubbed ourselves the 
higher animals, we ascribe the eagerness of the solitary wasp to an impulse 
or instinct, and we exterminate their numerous species from the face of the 
earth for ever, without even seeking to make a prior acquaintance with them. 
Meanwhile our economists and moralists devote their volumes to admira¬ 
tion of the progress of the civilization that effects this destruction and toler¬ 
ates this negligence.” 
Sharp divides the solitary wasps, according to their habits, roughly into 
four groups: (i) those that form no special receptacles (nests) for their young, 
but are either of parasitic or subparasitic habits or take advantage of the 
abodes of other insects, holes, etc.; (2) constructors of cells of clay formed 
into pottery by the saliva of the insect, 
and by drying; (3) excavators of burrows 
in the ground; (4) makers of tunnels in 
wood or stems of plants. Several species 
make use of both of the last two methods. 
Some of the parasitic wasps dig into 
the ground until they find some underground 
insect, usually a larva, for example a beetle- 
grub, which they sting (paralyze) and on 
which they then deposit an egg. There 
is no attempt to make a nest or to remove 
the prey from its position as found. The 
hatching wasp larva feeds on the grub but 
in such a way as not to kill it before its 
own development is complete. A common 
parasitic wasp of this habit is Tiphia inornata , 
§ inch long, shining black, which paralyzes 
white grubs, the larvae of June-beetles. 
Other allied species, some yellow and black 
and much larger, prey on other larvae of 
Scarabaeid beetles From the nests of other 
wasps, and of both solitary and communal bees, have been bred several 
kinds of solitary wasps which live either parasitically or as guests (inqui- 
lines) in these nests. If guests, their larvae feed on the stored food of the 
host; if parasites, they feed on the actual larval or adult bodies of their 
hosts themselves. Interesting wasps living habitually in nests of other 
wasps or bees are the Mutillidae, popularly known as velvet-ants, cow- 
Fig. 699.—A cow-killer, or wingless 
wasp, Spharophthalma similima, 
female. (After Lugger; natural 
size indicated by line.) 
