Oct. 29, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
691 
known as the tarantula killer. It regularly 
makes a business of hunting the fierce tarantula, 
which is very much afraid of it and in every 
way tries to escape the fatal sting. It runs 
away and hides if it can, or if not it strives to 
give battle. But the wasp circles about it, and 
when the favorable opportunity occurs, darts up¬ 
on its victim and stings it. Sometimes a single 
thrust of the powerful sting is enough, or again 
two or three wounds may be necessary before 
the spider becomes paralyzed, but when it loses 
the power of motion, the wasp seizes the body 
and drags it to the hole which she has prepared. 
The trap door spider of California, which 
builds for occupancy an elaborate silk-lined tun¬ 
nel, provided with a trap door at the surface 
of the earth, is also often a prey to a large 
hunter wasp, and it is believed that the trap 
door which covers the spider's tunnel is put 
there as a protection against the attacks of this 
wasp, and not as has so often been suggested 
to conceal the burrow from man. Certain it is 
—according to the observations of Mrs. Mary 
Treat—that this wasp when she finds an open 
tunnel of the trap door spider enters it boldly 
and soon emerges with the paralyzed spider, 
which she uses in the same way as is done by 
the other digging wasps. 
Last August while walking through a garden 
the eye was caught by a brownish lump, about 
the size of a golf ball and roughly spherical, 
through which the stem of a crimson rambler 
rose seemed to run. At first glance it looked 
like an ordinary brown oak gall, but a little 
closer inspection showed that it was made of 
dried road mud. There was no hole in the 
mass, and nothing to indicate what it was or 
how it got where it was. Cutting the rose 
shoot off below the lump, it was taken home and 
placed on a plate and a section shaved from the 
side. The mud was solid and hard, and as the 
table knife passed through it, the mud took a 
high polish. This process of shaving off the 
nest showed that within it near the surface were 
at least three white grubs, each perhaps some¬ 
what less than a half inch in length and about 
half as wide as long. This was the nest of one 
of the solitary wasps, possibly a species of 
Odynents. Sometimes these nests are as large 
as a hen’s egg. 
It has usually been assumed that the hunter 
wasps discover their prey by flying about over 
the ground trusting to chance and observation 
to throw in their way the insects they need, but 
there is some evidence to show that wasps pos¬ 
sess a special sense which enables them to fol¬ 
low their prey when not visible to them, per¬ 
haps somewhat in the same way that a hound 
follows the track of a rabbit or deer. Many 
years ago a letter was published in the London 
Nature from C. L. W. Merlin to Henry Cecil, 
Esq., telling of a curious observation made by 
Mr. Merlin in the following language: 
“I was sitting one summer afternoon at an 
open window (my bed room) looking into the 
garden, when I was surprised to observe a large 
and rare species of spider run across the window 
sill in a crouching attitude. It struck me the 
spider was evidently alarmed or it would not 
have so fearlessly approached me. It hastened 
to conceal itself under the projecting edge of 
the window sill inside the room, and had hardly 
done so when a fine large hunting wasp buzzed 
in at the open window and flew about the room, 
evidently in search of something. Finding noth¬ 
ing, the wasp returned to the open window and 
settled on the window sill, running backward 
and forward as a dog does when looking or 
searching for a lost scent. It soon alighted on 
the track of the poor spider and in a moment 
it discovered its hiding place, darted down on 
it, and no doubt inflicted a wound with its sting. 
The spider rushed off again and this time took 
refuge under the bed, trying to conceal itself 
under the framework, or planks which supported 
the mattress. The same scene occurred here; 
the wasp never appeared to follow the spider 
by sight, but ran backward and forward in large 
circles like a hound. The moment the trail of 
the spider was found, the wasp followed all the 
turns it had made till it came on it again. The 
poor spider was chased from hiding place to 
hiding place, out of the bed room, across a pas¬ 
sage and into the middle of another large room 
where it finally succumbed to the repeated stings 
inflicted by the wasp, rolling itself up into a 
ball. The wasp then took possession of its prey, 
and, after ascertaining it could make no resist¬ 
ance, tucked it up under its very long hind legs 
just as hawks or eagles carry off their quarry, 
and was just flying off to its nest when I inter¬ 
posed and secured both for my collection. 
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“I am certain the spider left no web behind 
it. I cannot be sure, however, that, as it had 
evidently been attacked by the wasp before en¬ 
tering my room, a small quantity of liquid may 
not have exuded from its wounds, which may 
have helped the wasp in tracking it. I have no 
doubt myself that insects have the sense of 
smell, and probably much more developed than 
our own. No one * * * who has sugared for 
moths, or seen the largest Sphingidce hovering 
over the strongest scented flower at night, or 
employed a caged female moth as a lure to her 
male admirers can, I think, doubt this. If - so, 
let them put a saucerful of honey in a corner of 
a room opening into a garden, throw open the 
mindow and see how soon the bees, wasps, etc., 
will be attracted to the honey. 
“There is a tradition in the East that one of 
the tests by which the Queen of Sheba tried to 
prove the wisdom of Solomon was placing on 
a table before him two bouquets, one of artificial 
and the other of natural flowers, and requiring 
that he should say which were the real and 
which the artificial without moving from his 
throne. Solomon ordered the windows to be 
thrown open and in flew the bees, etc., which 
went at once to the real flowers. 
“Whether the senses of insects, birds and 
what we call the lower creation are similar to 
ours in every respect it is very difficult to say. 
No doubt a dog, if he could speak, would say 
a man had not the sense of smell, and would 
prove that his nose was worse than useless to 
him. An eagle, or hawk, would say that men 
and moles, etc., have only the rudiments of 
eyes, and so on. 
“Man, with five very imperfectly developed 
senses (who can say that there are not twenty 
senses?), is the only animal that is dogmatical 
and denies all he cannot understand.’’ 
Studying the African Elephant. 
Carl E. Akeley, whose adventures with Afri¬ 
can mammals are so well known, has been for 
two years in British East Africa making collec¬ 
tions for the American Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory, and especially making preparations for the 
group of elephants for the African Hall in the 
Museum. He has been trying to secure ele- 
thants—as nearly perfect as possible—but also 
lias been securing studies and material for the 
reproduction of the country which they espe¬ 
cially frequent. He speaks of the great diffi¬ 
culty of finding bull elephants which will repre¬ 
sent the best of their kind. In a letter written 
to Director H. C. Bumpus last July he says: 
“Since January I have inspected well over 1,000 
elephants here and in Uganda, but have not been 
fortunate in finding the desired perfect specimen. 
I am determined that the old bull shall be as 
near right as possible, even if it takes another 
year. Uganda is undoubtedly the place to get 
big elephants, but they are becoming rare. They 
are hounded incessantly by sportsmen, poachers, 
traders and natives. The wonder is that there 
is a good one left. One that we shot in Uganda 
carried tusks of seventy to eighty pounds' weight, 
but owing to the huge bulk of the animal they 
appeared small. This elephant was of size suffi¬ 
cient to carry 200-pound tusks gracefully.” 
Membership in the A. 0. U. 
The American Ornithologists’ Union, whose 
annual meeting is to be held at Washington, 
Nov. 14-17 next, desires to increase its member¬ 
ship, which now amounts to less than 1,000. 
Membership in the A. O. U. costs only $3 per 
year, which includes initiation and a subscription 
to the Auk, the illustrated quarterly of the Union 
issued January, April, July and October, and de¬ 
voted to the scientific and popular study of birds. 
All persons who are interested in any aspect of 
bird life ought to become associate members of 
the Union, and all proper persons may become 
so by letting their wish to join be known to Dr. 
Jonathan Dwight, Jr.. Treasurer, 134 West 
Seventy-first street. New York city. 
At a meeting of the dealers in cage birds held 
to consider the recent adverse decision by the 
highest court of England, the suggestion was 
made and well received that licenses be required 
of those who capture live birds for the cage bird 
trade. 
