THE SPIDER-HUNTERS 



under the lump of earth. At least ten times was that 

 limp and helpless creature dragged from one side to 

 the other of the little depression, a distance of about 

 two inches, the time between being filled in by the wasp 

 with cleaning herself and squeezing the legs of her 

 victim. After forty minutes of this tedious delay the 

 moment came when she picked up her burden with 

 renewed determination and started rapidly on her way. 

 We kept very close to her, but she did not allow our 

 presence to interrupt her work, and, indeed, paid no 

 attention to it. After she had gone along for a distance 

 of about eight feet there was another pause, of only 

 five minutes this time, and when she resumed her on- 

 ward march it was in a new direction. Thus far she 

 had gone almost due south, but now she turned and 

 went six feet toward the west. Suddenly the spider 

 was dropped. There was no hole in sight, but the wasp 

 seemed to feel that some important crisis had arrived. 

 Her whole manner was excited and flurried, and we 

 thought that surely we had reached the neighborhood 

 of the nest. How little we understood her! Her nest was 

 still far away, and it may be that she had just begun to 

 realize that the task she had undertaken was too heavy 

 for her accomplishment that at her present rate of pro- 

 gress her strength would be exhausted before she could 



233 



