SOME GRA VE DIGGERS. 119 



pushed it before her with her head in a \7ay quite peculiar tJ 

 herself. In distributing the earth that was taken out, she went 

 five and one-half inche? from the nest — a distance which is much 

 greater than is common among wasps, but which accords well 

 with the habits of pu net at us, since she continues the work of 

 excavation from day to day. 



On August thirteenth, at half after eight in the mcming, we 

 found that a second female, perhaps inspired by the example of 

 her sister, had made a new nest within two inches of the first one, 

 and had flown away, leaving it open. Presently the other wasps 

 began to appear, one aft«r the other, in their doonvay. Two 

 of the males flew away and one of the females, doubtless the one 

 that we had seen digging the night before, began to work afresh 

 at making the nest larger. Probably she was excavating a 

 pocket for the reception of an egg, and the amount of labor re- 

 quired was enormously increased by the great length (about 

 twenty-two inches), of the main gallery by which the displaced 

 earth must be carried out. She worked for an hour and in 

 spreading the dirt about, inadvertently filled in the opening of 

 the second nest. At length she flew away. 



At ten o'clock a female arrived carrying a bee of the species 

 Halktus disparalis Cr., and tried to find nest Xo. 2. She 

 came to the wrong place and worked about, here and there, for 

 some minutes, holding the bee under the thorax, clasped by the 

 second pair of legs. Being unsuccessful she dropped her bur- 

 den and flew away for a few minutes. While she was gone we 

 removed a leaf that had fallen over her nest, and on her return 

 she at once descended upon the right spot and began to scratch 

 open the entrance, the bee being kicked backward with the re- 

 jected earth. When the way was clear, however, she picked it 

 up, brought it toward the hole, dropped it, ran in and out, 

 brought it nearer, ran in again and turning around in the tunnel 

 seized the bee in her mandibles and pulled it down. This per- 

 formance was due to the accidental obstruction of the gallery, 

 for we afterward found that punctatvs ordinarily flies directly 

 into her nest, or, when it is closed, pauses en the wing to scratch 



