76 
HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 
covered with dense golden hairs, busily engaged in digging 
its hole in a gravelly w T alk. Away it worked in a lusty, 
hearty manner, literally tooth and nail, removing the larger 
bits of gravel with its large curved sickle-like jaws ; and as 
it finally tunnelled itself out of sight, it would often back up 
out of its hole, and scratch and shovel the dirt out with its 
fore and hind legs, pushing back the dirt from the mouth of 
its hole with its long hairy hind legs. As soon as its hole 
was a few inches deep, perhaps four or five, it flew off to the 
grassy bank close by and immediately returned with a green 
Fig. 59. 
Sphex Wasp. 
grasshopper which it had evidently stung and paralyzed, as 
it did not kick and struggle. It disappeared for a few min¬ 
utes in its hole, long enough apparently to lay an egg in the 
body of the grasshopper, which was destined only to awake 
from its death-like lethargy to find itself the prey of the 
young Sphex. 
That the sting of the wasp is so wonderfully guided as to 
pierce one of the nervous centres (ganglia) of the grass¬ 
hopper, so that the insect is paralyzed, is proved by the ob¬ 
servations of a French naturalist, Fabre, who has given us 
12 
