The Arizona sentinel., 1888-11-03
WONDERFUL INSECTS.
Providing Living Meat for Their
Young.
Marvellous Instinct Displayed by Some
Members of the Wasp Family-The
Study OF These Little Creatures
of Absorbing Interest.

There is nothing new under the
sum-" wrote the wise 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 more clever than we can ever
hope to attains
Is it not strange in itself that the
solitary wasps, that is, the species in
which each one builds its 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 the flowers ever since they left
their cocoOns, these sand-wasps, toward
the end of July, begin to burrow in the
soft sand, and when they have formed
a 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 a little
golden-green fly in her grasp, flies
straight to the right spot in the sand,
enters, and, placing the fly on its back
within the oval chamber, she lays up
on its flank tiny, sticky egg.
Then she comes out and again closes
the door of the passage, for she knows
that in twenty-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 its victim but the debris of skin
and legs and wings.
Here we have no preserving of meat.
We must go to 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 its body
There are large and small sphexes,
some of which feed their grubs on
small grasshoppers, while others at
tack even good-sized locust; but one
and all they are skillfull practitioners,
and know how to paralyze without
killing, so as to leave their prey stored
up in fresh state till the grSb 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 a shelter over
the doorway of the cells. Then, if 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
Bembex, for the ground is close and
firm, but each one with her powerful
jaws digs into the ground, often lifting
out even a 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 tougher piece of ground calls
for all her strength.
In few hours she has made a gal
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 a 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 a struggle as the two roll
over and over, now one now the other
on the top, nut at last the wasp con-
quers and the grasshopper lies upon
his back.
Then follows a curious operation.
Turning her head to the grasshopper's
tail the wasp seizes the end of his ab-
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 under
her she gives three stabs, one in the
neck of her victim, one further back
between the first and second pair of
legs and the third still nearer to his
abdomen.