WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



in intelligence over that species, although to be sure she 

 would have been still wiser had she chosen an entirely 

 new neighborhood. Another individual was so much 

 disturbed by our scrutiny that she dropped her beetle 

 at the entrance to her nest. She did not pick it up again 

 and utilize it, although it lay for three days in the dust at 

 the threshold. 



As to the condition of the beetles stored by clypeata : 

 in the first nest that we opened we found eight, seven of 

 which were dead, while the eighth, which we had just 

 seen stung several times, was alive, but died on the fol- 

 lowing day. The second nest gave us five beetles, all of 

 them dead and dry. In the other nests that we opened 

 we found nothing, though we knew that the beetles were 

 there had we only been skillful enough to discover them. 



Of Cerceris deserta, which closely resembles clypeata, 

 but appears later in the season, we had only a single ex- 

 ample. We chanced to see her dropping into a crevice 

 among some lumps of earth, and at first could scarcely 

 believe that this was the dwelling-place of a wasp, as 

 there was nothing whatever about it to indicate a nest; 

 and even after we had removed the rough pieces of earth 

 above, we could see nothing of the loose material that 

 must have been carried out. 



She was much like clypeata in her manners, with the 



152 



