16 BEES AND WASPS [CH. 



on the contrary carries her weapon at the tip of her 

 tail, and needs to be expert in at once keeping her 

 eye on the foe and at the same time delivering an 

 attack from her rear armament. Of course the poor 

 spider is heavily handicapped by the absence of wings 

 which enable the wasp to move and " make circles " 

 round her less agile opponent. To equalise the 

 chances on one occasion I put an uninjured spider 

 and a female P. viaticus together in a glass-topped 

 box which allowed plenty of floor space for the 

 "ring," but was too shallow to allow the wasp to 

 use her wings freely. The duel was of brief dura- 

 tion : wasp and spider stood facing each other tense 

 on tip-toe : each plainly realised that a crisis had 

 arrived : the wasp made a weak feint with her ab- 

 domen : the spider lunged quickly forward and for 

 an instant touched the wasp: a spasm passed over 

 the wasp and she fell over on her side dead. The 

 spider had got "home 5 with the poison fangs and 

 for once P. viaticus had to acknowledge defeat. 



Under normal conditions the vanquished spider 

 is seized by one leg and dragged helpless through 

 the rough grass and heather towards the burrow. 

 The wasp makes several visits of inspection to her 

 home during the process of transport, but these seem 

 to be for the purpose of maintaining rights of owner- 

 ship and of ejecting parasitic flies and other insects 

 that are ready to appropriate a tenantless hole or to 



