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191.

Wheelahan's Bridge, QC., cont.

Taken at 3, cont.

 

192.
7th August 1950. In forenoon went to see "a wasp" which Miss Daisy Dawson (Garville Avenue, Rathgar) said had bored in a dead branch of a pear tree in her garden - "a large yellow wasp"! I found as expected that it 
 was Crabro carifrons. Miss Dawson had sawn off the dead branch and exposed some of the cells which were filled with the remains of the Horn Fly Scaeva (= Catabomba) pyrastri L., one of which flies I saw close to the said pear tree. She and her maid who told me an extraordinary story of wasps (Vespa ☿☿) hovering over the lawn & darting down & stinging earth worms, the tip of which later died & was fed on by the said wasps: both affirmed that they had more than once ("repeatedly") watched the wasp & seen this happen, but what to believe I do not know. Both obviously thought they had seen the wasps sting the worms & subsequently feed on them, but suspect what they had seen was the wasp feeding on dead worms, i.e. worms that had died or been killed in some way, but not due to wasp stings!!

Transcription Notes:
♂♀☿