SEVERAL LITTLE WASPS 



the doings of her neighbors, but when she began to work 

 she was very industrious, and allowed nothing to inter- 

 fere with her labors, paying no more attention to us, no 

 matter how closely our curiosity led us to interrogate 

 her, than if we had been trees blown about by the 

 wind. 



Some of the wasps dig deep into the stems of bushes 

 to form galleries for their nests, but we found one wise 

 genus that went in only far enough to make one or two 

 cells, thus saving the trouble of carrying her cuttings 

 thirty or forty centimeters in direct opposition to the 

 force of gravity. This was Odynerus, whose nests we 

 found in July, in blackberry and raspberry 

 stems. Our first species was perennis, whose 

 nests bear her mark in the shape of a pellet 

 of earth placed above each mud partition. 

 One of her cells contained a wasp larva and 

 about sixteen caterpillars, nearly one third 

 of which were dead, while the rest were more 

 or less lively. They seemed to have been 

 stung near the anterior part, as the last three 

 or four segments were jerked up violently 

 when touched. The larva went on eating, 

 and the caterpillars went on dying from hour to hour. 

 At the end of the eighth day, the baby wasp finished 



89 



NEST OF 

 PERENNIS 



