THE SPIDER-HUNTERS 



chosen. She dashes at a place and scratches and digs 

 away with furious energy for a few minutes, and then, 

 starting up, she darts wildly hither and thither until a 

 new place, near by, is fixed upon and another beginning 

 made. In one instance eight nests were started and 

 some of them nearly finished, the little worker seeming 

 to be beside herself with excitement. After the decision 

 is finally made the tunneling is a rapid process. In one 

 case it took the wasp a whole hour to complete the work, 

 but out of the thirty nests that we saw made, nineteen 

 were finished in from twenty to twenty-five minutes. 

 Like Fabre's Sphex the wasp interrupts herself three 

 or four times to visit her spider and make sure that it is 

 safe. When all is done she brings the strix to within 

 a foot or two of the opening, runs to the nest to take a 

 final look, and then, going backward herself, pulls it 

 inside. 



In two instances we saw the fidgety little creature 

 go through a most comical performance, which again 

 recalls the Sphex of Fabre. Leaving her treasure on 

 the ground, she ran to the nest and kicked out a little 

 more earth; hastening back she dragged it an inch 

 nearer ; then away she went to the nest again for more 

 digging, and so on, dropping her spider half a dozen 

 times before she at last brought it home. In two other 



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