SOLITARY LIFE 



71 



entrance. Returning, she looked about for her door, 

 but not finding it, apparently mistrusted the honesty 

 of a neighbor, which had just descended, leaving her 

 own door temptingly near. She purloined this pebble 

 and was making off with it, when the rightful owner 

 appeared and gave chase, compelling her to relinquish it. 



" The things that struck us as most remarkable were 

 the unerring judgment in the selection of a pebble of 

 precisely the right size to fit the entrance, and the 

 use of the small pebble in smoothing down and packing 

 the soil over the opening, together with the instinct that 

 taught them to remove every evidence that the earth had 

 been disturbed." 



Coinciding with this are the interesting observations 

 subsequently made by George W. and Elizabeth Peck- 

 ham : " Just here must be told the story of one little 

 wasp whose individuality stands out in our minds 

 more distinctly than that of any of the others. We 

 remember her as the most fastidious and perfect little 

 worker of the whole season, so nice \vas she in her 

 adaptation of means to ends, so busy and contented in 

 her labor of love, and so pretty in her pride over her 

 completed work. In filling up her nest she put her head 

 down into it and bit away the loose earth from the sides, 

 letting it fall to the bottom of the burrow, and then, 

 after a quantity had accumulated, jammed it down with 

 her head. Earth was then brought from the outside and 

 pressed in, and then more was bitten from the sides. 

 When, at last, the filling was level with the ground, she 

 brought a quantity of fine grains of dirt to the spot, 

 and picking up a small pebble in her mandibles, used it 

 as a hammer in pounding them down with rapid strokes, 



