Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1888-10-31
WONDERFUL INSECTS.
Providing Living Meat for Their
Young.
Marvellous Instinct Displayed by Some
Members of the Wasp Famtly-Tho
Study Of These Little Creatures
of Absorbing Interest.


Members of the Wasp Famtly-The
Study Of These Little Creatures
of Absorbing Interest.
''There is nothing new under the
sum-" wrote the rise man; but who
would have thought that the secret of
preserving fresh meat, which we are
all now anxiously trying to find out,
was known and practiced ages ago by
the wasp family, and that in way
much moro clever than we can ever
hope to attaine
Ia it not strange in itself that the
solitary wasps, that is, the species in
which each one builds it's own nest,
though they feed entirely on honey
themselves, know that the young grubs
which will come from their eggs need
animal food? For after flying about
among tho flowers ever since they left
their eocoons, these sand-wasps, toward
the end of July, begin to burrow in the
soft sand, and when they have formed
q chamber they lay an egg in it and
provide flies, spiders, grasshoppers or
beetles for the young larva which is
soon to be born.
Some bring the food in piece by piece
as their child is ready to feed upon it.
The Bembex, or bee-wasp, may be seen
doing this in most parts of the world.
When she has scooped out in the
sand the chamber in which her young
grub is to be born and pass its youth
"a smooth, oval cell. at the end of a
short passage-she comes out and flies
away.
But she soon returns with little
golden-green fly in her grasp, flies
straight to the right spot in the sand,
enters, and, placing the fly on it's back
within the oval chamber, she lays up
on it's flank tiny, sticky egg. -
Then she comes out and again closes
the door of the passage, for she knows
that in twcnty-four hours the grub
will be Matched, and, finding its food
ready to eat, will devour and devour,
till, in about two days, nothing will be
left of it's victim but the debris of skin
and legs and wings.
Here we have no preserving of meat.
We must go 10 another group to find
the skillful meat-preservers. Here
the Sphex will serve us, that curious
genus so easily known from common
wasps by the thin stalk which joins
the abdomen to the rest of it's body.
There arc large and small sphexes,
some of which feed their grubs on
small grasshoppers. while others at-
tack even a good-sized locust; but one
and all they are skillfull practitioners,
and know how to paralyze without
killing. SD as to leave their prey stored
up in u fresh state till tho grub needs
it:
This time we must not go to loose
sand banks, but to a gravelly soil, Or
to places where tufts of grass bind the
sand together and make q shelter over
the doorway of the cells. Then, it we
listen carefully, we may hear the busy
hum OF some twelve or twenty Sphex
sand-wasps, each digging out her
separate home. although they work
together for company.
1t is harder work than that of the
Bembcx, for the ground is close and
firm. but each one with her powerful
jaws digs into the ground, often lifting
out oven small stone and placing it
aside, while, with her forefeet, she
clears in front, throwing out the gravel
with her hind-legs, and redoubling her
efforts and her humming song, when
ever u tougher piece of ground calls
for all her strength. 81
In a few hours she has made gall
lery some inches in length and bent
like an elbow near the opening to keep
out wind and rain, while at the farther
end she has made an oval chamber
with well-smoothed walls and floor and
ceiling.
And now she goes for her prey. This
time it is q grasshopper which is need
ed for the grub, and, as some unwary
little chirper is singing his song, he is
pounced upon by his small but terrible
enemy.
There is struggle as the two roll
over and over, now one now the other
on the top, but at last the wasp con-
quers and the grasshopper lies upon
his back.
Then follows q curious operation.
Turning her head to the grasshopper's
tail the wasp seizes the end of his abb
domen with her mandibles and holds
It fast, while with her feet she keeps
his legs down. Then bending her slim
waist SO as to bring her sting uAder
her she gives three stabs, one in the