The Coolidge examiner., 1938-08-04
Wasp brings Its dnner-a ccada
Wosps and Hornets Are Efficient
DestroYers Of Our Insect Pests

Prepared by National Geographic Society
Washington. D. C.-WNU Service.
|CTINGS have a high edu-
- cational value. After one
~ or two experiences with
these concealed weapons, the
personality of the little sting
wielders is firmly impressed
upon you.
1t is quite proper to regard the
wasps and hornets with respect, as
they insist you shall. But do not
let their potent personalities preJu-
dice you against them. For 1t is
within this group, taken in the
broadest sense, that is found the
cleverest and most ingenious Of all
the insects, as well as the most
efficient and destructive enemies of
our insect pests.
The cleverness and ingenuity OF
wasps take numerous forms. Each
of the many thousands of different
kinds has its own little specially
which differs more or less from that
of every other kind. Among these
specialties few are more fascinating
than those of the various digger
wasps that burrow in the ground
and lay up in little chambers food
upon which their young subsist.
Look closely into the habits Of
some of the common digger wasps
and see what they are doing in that
sultry season when you can think
only of vacation, for it is then that
they display the greatest energy.
Familiar to everyone in the hot.
still, midsummer days is the mo-
notonous shrill song of the cicada.
Hornets Prey on Cicadas.
Once in a while one of these mo-
notonous trills stops suddenly. You
hear a discordant shrek that star
ties you for a moment. Then all is
the same again-the heat and the
lIllGIIlAldDlG
What has happened? One of Ma
lures little tragedies. A cicada has
been surprised by cicada-killer,
has fed shrieking away, and in all
probability has been caught and
stumg, not to death, but into state
of complete helplessness.
The cicada killer is one of the
largest and most conspicuous, as
well as one of the commonest. of
burrowing wasps. To many people
it is known as a hornet-in fact, the
homeland is much feared. But it
is not at all aggressive. Ii resents
undue familiarity, Of course, but its
nature is wholly peaceful-except
when cicadas are concerned.
Cicadas are its only prey. Some
times you see it flying about tree,
hunting for victim up among the
branches, or pursuing a cicada at
high speed through the air. But it is
usually noticed dragging a cicada,
often much larger than itself, along
the ground on the way to its burrow.
This nursery is commonly made
| in the higher and drier portions of
lawns, or in sloping grassy banks,
| and runs to a more or less spheri-
cal cell about an inch and a half in
diameter. The finished nursery usu-
ally includes four cells.
After each cell is completed the
mother wasp goes on hunting ex-
pedition. In bringing the cicada to
the cell she frequently hoists her
victim laboriously up a tree, from
which she flies diagonally down to-
ward her burrow. Thus she saves
much time and energy, for dragging
a creature as large as a cicada
through the grass is a herculean
task even for so powerful a wasp.
Usually, though not invariably,
second cicada is added to the first.
After the cicadas-still alive but
helpless-are stored safely in the
underground cell, the wasp places
an egg on the body of one of them
just under one of the middle legs,
then closes the cell with earth.
Weeks Food for the Grubs.
The egg matches in three days,
and the grub feeds on the cicadas
for a little over week. 1t then
makes a cocoon of earth, mixed
with enough silk to make it rather
dense, and spends the winter inside.
In the spring, after passing through
the pupa stage, the wasp digs its
way out of the ground.
The cicada-killers that you see
walking or flying about a grassy
slope are living evidence of the nu-
merous tragedies that have taken
place beneath the sod.
Only the young of this wasp feed
on cicadas. The adults, as is the
case with nearly all the wasps, are
vegetarians. For many days after
emerging from the ground. the ci