THE SPIDER-HUNTERS 



POMPILUS MARGINATUS 



down, the hole being deeper than it looked from the 

 outside. There was no egg upon it. Evidently the work 

 had not been finished, for the restless creature returned 

 fifteen times within an hour to the broken nest, either 

 for the purpose of laying her 

 egg or to remove the spider to 

 another resting-place on her 

 homeward way. 



This was our first specimen 

 of marginatus, and a month 

 passed before we met another. 

 It was while watching some 

 Bembecidae that we saw the 

 pretty little orange-spotted worker dragging a small 

 Thomisid across their nesting-ground. The spider was 

 so small that she held it in her mandibles well above 

 the ground, and we speak of her as dragging it only 

 because she walked backward and acted as though she 

 were obliged to exert herself. Quite often the spiders 

 taken by this species are too large to be carried, and 

 then it is necessary to drag them; this habit is so in- 

 grained that when it would be much more convenient 

 to go straight ahead they stick to the ancient custom, 

 and seem unable to move in any other way. This little 

 wasp was in a frantic hurry, running backward into the 



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