Wasps

The Solitary Wasps.

(Super-family Sphecoidea.)

To this group belong nearly all of those insects which are known as the solitary wasps, in contradistinction to the social wasps which form communities and live in nests, usually constructed of a paper-like substance, and lead very much the same socialistic life which we see in the social bees. The solitary wasps, in the main, form burrows, just as do the solitary bees, construct cells within their burrows and in the cells provide food for their larvae. This food, however, is not the pollen and honey mixture which is found in the cells of the solitary bees, but it is other insects which have been stung and paralyzed by the mother wasp. To this super-family belongs a large assemblage of forms which comprise twelve large families, the habits of all being rather similar.

Nothing can be more fascinating than the study of the habits of the solitary wasps and no more readable book on a natural history topic was ever prepared, not even excepting the famous Natural History of Selbourne or the general volume of Kirby and Spence's Introduction, than that entitled, "On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps," by George W. and Elizabeth G. Peckham, of Milwaukee, published as Bulletin No. 2 of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. The Peckhams, already noted for their interesting work on the habits of spiders, and attracted to the study of solitary wasps probably through observing these creatures carry off spiders to stow away in their cells for their young, have spent many summer days in close observation of these industrious, active and most intelligent creatures and have described their observations in the most charming style. They have entered into the lives of the solitary wasps and have shown them to be as interesting in their way as the much-more-written-about bees and ants. Their ingenuity in capturing their prey, the care with which they conceal their burrows, the different individuality among members of the same species, and more astonishing than all, the actual use of improvised tools by these creatures, and many other points which the Peckhams have brought out and described make one wish to drop all other occupations and immediately begin the study of the solitary wasps.

The active little wasps of the family Oxybelidae are known in Europe to burrow in the sand and to provision their nests with flies. European writers state that they do not paralyze the flies by stinging as with most other digger wasps, but that they crush the thorax just beneath the wings so as to destroy the great nerve ganglia at that spot. The Peckhams found one of our American species, Oxybelus quadrinotatus, burrowing in the sand and storing flies after the burrow was completed. There were sometimes a dozen flies in the same nest and all had the thorax crushed. This little wasp carries its prey by clasping the head of the victim with the third pair of legs, and flying thus, with the whole body of the fly sticking out behind her, she presents a remarkable appearance.