1911] Girault, Observations on Polistes. 55 



tinued for several minutes, when the motion was stopped and the 

 morsel held in her "'chin' or between the breast and the under side of 

 her head and the mandibles, the fore feet assisting; this allowed 

 exploration of the cells with the antenna?. The right cell found in 

 this way, the morsel of food was again revolved and chewed for 

 another minute and then placed into the cell decided upon. The 

 queen then thoroughly cleaned her fore feet, antennae and mandibles, 

 the former by drawing them through the mandibles, the antenna?, by 

 drawing them through the fore tarsal strig-ils and the mandibles by 

 working them. She then inspected the nest again. Day cloudy, 

 windy. 



June 6: — The past few days have been rainy and warm. This 

 morning it was found that two of the larva? in the nest have reached 

 a very large size, nearly filling their respective cells, which have been ' 

 considerably lengthened. The queen is now kept constantly engaged in 

 feeding. The eggs in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth cells remain 

 unhatehed. 



At 5 :16 p. m., the mother wasp was observed to return to the nest 

 holding in her mandibles a pellet of soluted pajjer, which after a 

 minute, was added to one of the cells ; for this purpose, the substance 

 being still held in the mandibles, it was simply applied to a spot on 

 the edge of the cell and then pinched with the jaws which at the 

 same time were drawn along the cell's edg'e, thus distributing the mat- 

 ter, which upon being thinned out, dried and hardened ; the mandibles 

 alone were used in this operation. While thus engaged, she was much 

 irritated by the approach of another wasp (Sceliphron) which hap- 

 pened to fly in toward the nest ; she suddenly darted out at it and 

 drove it off. Then she kept on the alert, constantly facing the ob- 

 server. At 5 :27 she left again, returning at 5 :32 with the same kind 

 of material, which was placed around the edges of another cell. 

 Again a trip was made at 5 :52 p. m., returning at 5 :58 with a food 

 morsel, which was held as previously described ; after chewing this 

 for about a minute, she visited in turn each larva, holding the morsel 

 out to them in her mandibles (head and fora legs hidden within the 

 cells each time) ; the food quickly disappeared. After this the quee: 1 

 did not leave the nest again, remaining throughout the night. Da y 

 fair, warm, sultry. 



One of the other nests under observation was taken at 6:45 y. 

 m, today, during the absence of the mother wasp. This description 



