AN ISLAND SETTLEMENT. 61 



is kicked out sometimes covers it over so that when the way is 

 clear the careless proprietor must search it out and clean it off 

 before she can store it away. In one instance, in which we had 

 been opening a nest close by, the tunnel was entirely blocked 

 by the loose earth which w^e had disturbed, and the wasp worked 

 for ten minutes before she opened a way to her nest. During, 

 part of tills time she held the fly, but when she reahzed that it 

 was going to be a long piece of work she laid it down near by. 

 As the wasp enters she sometimes leaves the hole open behind 

 her, but oftener fills it by pushing up earth from below. When 

 she comes out again she throws in a little dirt and then begins- 

 to circle about the place. She seems not quite easy about the- 

 nest, however, returning three or four times to scratch earth 

 over the entrance, before finally taking her departure. 



We opened a good many nests in the course of the summer 

 and found them all very much alike, much more so than is the 

 case with other species. The entrance tunnel runs in obliquely 

 for from three to five inches below the surface of the ground, as 

 is seen in the dra\\dng. (PI. XI., fig. 4.) 



We grow accustomed to marvels and from our familiarity 

 with other wasps we take as a matter of course the unerring ac- 

 curacy with which Bemhex sw^oops down upon the exact spot 

 at which the entrance to her nest is hidden. And yet how- 

 strange a power it is ! There is not the least sign to help her — 

 not a stone, not a blade of grass is to be seen on the field. Our 

 method of marking a nest which we wished to find again was 

 to place tiny pebbles at exactly equal distances from it, one on_ 

 either side, so that the middle point of the straight line between 

 them gave us the desired spot. By what mysterious insight 

 does the mother wasp, returning with food for her young, rec- 

 ognize that undifferentiated spot of ground as the portal of her- 

 home? 



We once smoothed over the entrance to a nest, after seeing 

 the wasp go out, pressing down the earth to make the surface 

 smooth and compact. When the owner came back she seemed 

 greatly puzzled, circling about and alighting several times. At 



