124 SPIDERS [CH. 



appeared quite demoralised. It was hanging from 

 a thread, down which the Ichneumon fly was seen to 



*/ 



crawl. When it reached the spider the latter dropped 

 an inch lower on two or three occasions but then 

 remained passive, and the parasite on Hearing it, 

 turned round, backed down the line, and with great 

 care and deliberation attached an egg at the usual 

 spot. 



But no enemies of spiders are more terrible than 

 some of the solitary wasps, and gruesome indeed is 

 the fate of any creature that falls into their clutches. 

 The social wasps often capture spiders to feed their 

 young but in their case the proceeding is summary 

 and without any finesse. They merely catch a spider, 

 sting it to death, cut it to pieces with their jaws, and 

 feed it into the mouths of their expectant grubs. 

 The treatment is brutal enough, but at all events it 

 is expeditious. Now the solitary "'digger' 1 wasps 

 never see their young. They make cells, either by 

 burrowing in the ground or by agglomerating particles 

 of mud or gravel, and in each cell is placed an egg 

 together with sufficient food to last the grub which 

 hatches out for the whole of its larval existence. 

 The mother will not be at hand as is the social 

 worker-wasp to supply new food as required, and it 

 is therefore necessary so to arrange matters that the 

 food provided may retain its fresh condition for at 

 least a fortnight. On the other hand the victims must 



