Bulletin - Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Kentucky Volume 133-146 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...the air and moved steadily out of sight as if she had no further interest in that locality. As soon as she was gone I removed the dirt carefully and examined it with a hand magnifier, when it was found that the little fly had deposited not an egg as was supposed, but a living grub or maggot. The army-worm was then dug up and on one side of it was found the long translucent egg placed there by the wasp. The worm was of course to be a supply of fresh meat for her young. The next day while coming up the walk to my rooms in the Station Building I saw a second wasp of the same species with a worm. I watched it for some time, and while it was wandering in the midst of a bunch of knot-grass (Polygonum aviclare) saw another of the little gray flies flitting ahead of it and evidently keeping watch of its movements. The fly was too quick for me, however, and escaped, but I got a good look at it this time, and believe it was one of the flesh flic5: of the genus Sarcophaga, which are known to produce living young. The wasp, which appeared to be disturbed by my presence, did not locate her burrow, perhaps did not care to do o while I was looking, and was finally captured and preserved. The army-worm she carried, weighed by a chemical balance exactly 0.0912 gram, nearly nine times as much as the wasp, which weighed only 0.0781 grain. Whether the grub of the wasp eats up the cuckoo fly, or the latter with its earlier start, eats the grub of the wasp, I am unable at present to say. Possibly both find the'army-worm sufficient for their wants. In any case the army-worm does not survive, which is a more practical, if less interesting consideration. FUNGUS ENEMIES. During wet seasons by far the most destructive enemy of the army-worm is a species of Empusa, one of the parasiti...