ENEMIES AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 387 



idea of the skill and acumen of these creatures in their raids. For ex- 

 ample, there is no species with stronger secretive tendencies than Epeira 

 strix. Its ordinary hiding place in a rolled leaf is so carefully 

 Charac- selected and separated from its snare that I am continually 

 eiis ics th\yarted in search for it. Yet the mud dauber finds it. So with 



of Cap- . ■ T -.T- ■ T ■ ■ 



tives ^''® Latengrade spider Misumena vatia. Its mimicry of the va- 



rious colors of the particular flowers upon which it lurks, is sur- 

 prisingly exact, although for the most part it affects yellow and piiikish 

 white colors. Yet it is precisel}' this species which the wasp, in her in- 

 dustrious quest among leaves and blossoms, most frequently falls upon. 

 I confess myself equally puzzled and interested at the facts which here 

 present themselves. If one were at liberty to do so, he might fancy that 

 this curious hymenopter feels some trace of that noble rage which inspires 

 the breast of the huntsman, and, scorning more inglorious game, devotes 

 herself to that which most excites her enterprise and evokes her skill. I 

 have admired the intensity of action shown by the blue mud dauber when 

 hunting spiders among bushes. It fairly jerks itself along from leaf to 

 leaf and from stem to stem, prying under every corner and thrusting its 

 antennie beneath leaves, peeking into every cranny, angle, and nook where 

 a spider could jiossibly be rei)osing. I do not wonder, after watching one 

 of these creatures stalking its prey, that even the most secretive of our 

 araneads fails to escape the detective skill and quenchless ardor of the 

 remorseless insect. 



The solitary wasps, diggers, and mud daubers are not the only ones 

 whom maternal instinct makes hostile to spiders. The social or paper 

 making wasps may be included in the same list. The digger 

 °°^^ wasps appear to feed upon vegetable matter exclusively, although 



they provide animal food for their larvse. It is difficult to ac- 

 count for the development of such a habit and such a taste. How could 

 the insectivorous habit have come to a larva by heredity from a nectar 

 feeding ancestry ? On what principle can one explain wh}' a mother with 

 sucli a taste should jjrovide for a sarcophagous offspring ? Evolutionism 

 has here a series of facts that lay formidable obstacles in its path. 



If, now, we could show in the digger wasps some such facts as appear 

 in the life of the social wasps, we might, perhaj^s, escape the difficult}'. 

 These insects also feed upon the honey and pollen of flowers, but the 

 opportunity to acquire a taste for animal food is sufficient, for they di- 

 rectly feed their larvae as do bees and ants, not leaving them to serve 

 themselves as do the young of the mud daubers. That food consists 

 chiefly of desiccated insects, but spiders contribute a portion to the larval 

 bill of fare. The assaults of hornets upon the flies swarming in country 

 kitchens are well known to American housewives ; the webs of spiders 

 are raided for the same j^urpose. These captives are chewed into juicy 

 pul[) and fed by mouth to the white worms that occupy the regular cells 



