Chapter I: Front Matter

WASPS

SOCIAL AND SOLITARY

WASPS

SOCIAL AND SOLITARY

BY

GEORGE W. PECKHAM

AND

ELIZABETH G. PECKHAM

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

_ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES H. EMERTON_

“Bold sons of air and heat, untamed, untired.”—ILIAD, Book XVII

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1905

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY GEORGE W. PECKHAM AND ELIZABETH G. PECKHAM

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published April, 1905_

NOTE

A PART of the matter presented in this volume was published several years ago by the Wisconsin Biological Survey, under the title “Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps.” These chapters have been revised and modified, and new matter based upon later work has been added, in the hope that in their present less technical form the observations recorded will be of interest to the general reader.

For a number of the text cuts used in this volume we are indebted to the courtesy of Dr. E. A. Birge, Director of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. COMMUNAL LIFE 1

II. AMMOPHILA AND HER CATERPILLARS 15

III. THE GREAT GOLDEN DIGGER 56

IV. SEVERAL LITTLE WASPS 72

V. CRABRO 97

VI. AN ISLAND SETTLEMENT 119

VII. THE BURROWERS 141

VIII. THE WOOD–BORERS 178

IX. THE SPIDER–HUNTERS 196

X. THE ENEMIES OF THE GRASSHOPPER 248

XI. WORKERS IN CLAY 265

XII. SENSE OF DIRECTION 275

XIII. INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 292

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

PELOPÆUS ON NEST, GROUP OF FINISHED CELLS, AND
TUBE OPENED TO SHOW SPIDERS (page 266) _Frontispiece_

WASP EATING 3

PAPER NEST WITH SIDE REMOVED TO SHOW CONSTRUCTION
OF COMBS 11

AMMOPHILA URNARIA CARRYING CATERPILLAR TO
NEST 19

AMMOPHILA URNARIA STINGING CATERPILLAR 27

CATERPILLAR WITH EGG OF AMMOPHILA URNARIA 29

NEST OF AMMOPHILA 31

AMMOPHILA URNARIA USING STONE TO POUND DOWN
EARTH OVER NEST 39

THOROUGH LOCALITY STUDY BY SPHEX 59

HASTY LOCALITY STUDY BY SPHEX 61

SPHEX DRAGGING GRASSHOPPER TO HER NEST 63

NEST OF SPHEX 69

OXYBELUS QUADRINOTATUS 75

NEST OF OXYBELUS 79

APORUS FASCIATUS 81

WASP HOMES IN THE LOG CABIN 85

NEST OF PERENNIS 89

NEST OF ANORMIS 91

SEXMACULATUS IN THE LINDEN ROOTS 99

CRABRO AND HER WHITE MOTHS 103

CRABRO STIRPICOLA 106

BOTTLE ON STEM TO MEASURE WORK OF CRABRO 107

NEST OF C. STIRPICOLA 113

AMMOPHILA SLEEPING IN THE GRASS (AFTER
BANKS) 115

NEST OF BEMBEX 125

BEMBEX SPINOLÆ LOOKING OUT OF NEST 131

BEMBEX 136

A CORNER OF THE BEMBEX COLONY 137

NEST OF CERCERIS NIGRESCENS 142

CERCERIS CLYPEATA 143

CERCERIS DESERTA: LOCALITY STUDY BEFORE LEAVING
NEST 153

PHILANTHUS PUNCTATUS 157

NEST OF PHILANTHUS PUNCTATUS 163

APHILANTHOPS GATHERING ANTS 169

TRYPOXYLON RUBROCINCTUM 185

MALE TRYPOXYLON AWAITING THE FEMALE 191

TORNADO WASP (POMPILUS QUINQUENOTATUS) DIGGING
NEST 197

POMPILUS QUINQUENOTATUS 199

EPEIRA STRIX PARALYZED AND HUNG UP ON BEAN
PLANT BY POMPILUS QUINQUENOTATUS, OUT OF
THE WAY OF ANTS 203

NEST OF P. QUINQUENOTATUS 213

POMPILUS MARGINATUS 223

THE HOME–COMING OF SCELESTUS 241

NEST OF AGENIA BOMBYCINA 244

LYCOSA KOCHII, FOUND IN NEST OF AGENIA BOMBYCINA
245

TACHYTES 249

NEST OF TACHYTES 251

CHLORION AND THE INDISCREET CRICKET 257

HORIZONTAL CELLS OF THE MUD–DAUBER 271

COURSE FOLLOWED BY POMPILUS FUSCIPENNIS IN
FINDING HER SPIDER, AND IN RETRACING HER
STEPS TO THE NEST 283

LOCALITY STUDY OF ASTATA BICOLOR 288

LOCALITY STUDY OF ASTATA UNICOLOR 289

SECOND LOCALITY STUDY OF ASTATA UNICOLOR 290

PARALYZED SPIDER HUNG UP ON SORREL BY QUINQUENOTATUS
WHILE SHE DIGS HER NEST 295

Introduction

NOT long since I wrote to a friend, a nature lover, as follows: “The most charming monograph in any department of our natural history that I have read in many a year is on our solitary wasps, by George W. Peckham and his wife, of Wisconsin,—a work so delightful and instructive that it is a great pity it is not published in some popular series of nature books, where it could reach its fit audience, instead of being handicapped as a State publication.” This end has now been brought about, and the book—revised and enlarged with much new material and many new illustrations—placed within easy reach of all nature lovers, to whom it gives me pleasure to commend it. It is a wonderful record of patient, exact, and loving observation, which has all the interest of a romance. It opens up a world of Lilliput right at our feet, wherein the little people amuse and delight us with their curious human foibles and whimsicalities, and surprise us with their intelligence and individuality. Here I had been saying in print that I looked upon insects as perfect automata, and all of the same class as nearly alike as the leaves of the trees or the sands upon the beach. I had not reckoned with the Peckhams and their solitary wasps. The solitary ways of these insects seem to bring out their individual traits, and they differ one from another, more than any other wild creatures known to me. It has been thought that man is the only tool–using animal, yet here is one of these wasps, Ammophila, that uses a little pebble to pound down the earth over her nest. She takes the pebble in her mandibles, as you or I would take a stone in our hand, and uses it as a hammer to pound down the soil above the cavity that holds her egg. This is a remarkable fact; so far as I know there is no other animal on this continent that makes any mechanical use of an object or substance foreign to its own body in this way. The act stamps Ammophila as a tool–using animal.

I am free to confess that I have had more delight in reading this book than in reading any other nature book in a long time. Such a queer little people as it reveals to us, so whimsical, so fickle, so fussy, so forgetful, so wise and yet so foolish, such victims of routine and yet so individual, with such apparent foresight and yet such thoughtlessness, finding their way back to the same square inch of earth in the monotonous expanse of a wide plowed field with unfailing accuracy, and then at times finishing their cell and sealing it up without the spider and the egg; hardly any two alike; one nervous and excitable, another calm and unhurried; one careless in her work, another neat and thorough; this one suspicious, that one confiding; one species digging its burrow before it captures its game, others capturing the game and then digging the hole; one wasp hanging its spider up in the fork of a weed to keep it away from the ants while it works at its nest, and then running to it every moment or two to see that it is safe; another laying the insect on the ground while it digs,—verily a queer little people, with a lot of wild nature about them, and of human nature, too.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

WASPS

Social and Solitary