86 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



enough, but the next procedure was more so. When she had 

 heaped up the dirt to her satisfaction, she again flew away and 

 immediately returned with a smaller pebble, perhaps an eighth 

 of an inch in diameter, and then standing more nearly erect, with 

 the front feet folded beneath her, she pressed down the dust all 

 over and about the opening, smoothing off the surface, and ac- 

 companying the action with a peculiar rasping sound. After all 

 this was done, and she spent several minutes each time in thus 

 stamping 'the earth so that only a keen eye could detect any 

 abrasion of the surface, she laid aside the little pebble and flew 

 away to be gone some minutes. Soon, however, she comes back 

 with a heavy flight, scarcely able to sustain the soft green larva, 

 as long as herself, that she brings. The larva is laid upon the 

 ground, a little to one side, when, going to the spot where she 

 had industriously labored, by a few rapid strokes she throws out 

 the dust and withdraws the stone cover, laying it aside. Next, 

 the larva is dragged down the hole, where the wasp remains for 

 a few minutes, afterwards returning and closing up the entrance 

 precisely as before. This, we thought, was the end, and sup- 

 posed that the wasp would now be off about her other affairs, but 

 not so; soon she returns with another larva, precisely like the 

 first, and the whole operation is again repeated. And not only 

 the second time, but again and again, till four or five of the larvae 

 have been stored up for the sustainment of her future offspring. 

 Once, while a wasp had gone down the hole with a larva, my 

 friend quietly removed the door stone that she had placed by the 

 entrance. Returning, she looked about for her door, but not 

 finding it, apparently mistrusted the honesty of a neighbor, which 

 had just descended, leaving her own door temptingly near. She 

 purloined this pebble, and was making off with it, when the 

 rightful owner appeared and gave chase, compelling her to re- 

 linquish it. 



The things that struck us as most remarkable was the unerring 

 judgment in the selection of a pebble of precisely the right size 

 to fit the entrance, and the use of the small pebble in smoothing 

 down and packing the soil over the opening, together with the 

 instinct that taught them to remove every evidence that the earth 

 had been disturbed. 



