182 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



come there to seek them. ISTo devastating broom was allowed 

 to disturb them and they increased and multiplied wonderfully, 

 but the unreasonable wasps never came near them. We scarcely 

 knew what to do next, but just at this juncture a friend who 

 lived several miles away, sent us word that his cottage porch 

 was a favorite hunting-ground of the Pelopaei, and, thankful 

 for the opportunity, but wondering much why his cottage was 

 preferred to ours, we made haste to go over to the scene of 

 their operations. 



The questions to which we wanted answers were these: How 

 was the spider seized? "When and how many times was it stung? 

 Was the wound given with discrimination, a certain point in 

 the ganglion being pricked so that the spider might be paral- 

 yzed but not killed, or was it given after the manner of a nov- 

 ice in the art? Was there any malaxation? 



To make sure of all these points during the brief instant of 

 turmoil that covered the capture of the spider was, perhaps, 

 asking too much. At any rate we had to content ourselves 

 with partial success. We had scarcely amved at our friend's 

 cottage, when, to our great delight, a blue Pelopaeus came fly- 

 ing along, alighted on the wall, and began her search, creeping 

 into comers and cracks and investigating cottony lumps of web. 

 In a few moments a small Epeira strlx (the only species to be 

 found on the cottage), was dislodged and at once dropped to the 

 floor of the porch. The wasp paid no further attention to it 

 but went on with her search. Three more spiders, one after 

 the other, were disturbed and dropped to the floor without being 

 followed. The fifth one discovered was a little larger than the 

 others and was seized by the jaws and first legs of the wasp be- 

 fore it had time to escape. It was then rolled into a ball, or 

 at least so it appeared, and stimg, then rolled a little more, and 

 stung again, and then carried off. We had scarcely drawn 

 . reath after this performance when a second wasp appeared. 

 This one dislodged two spiders, and then caught a third which 

 was seized and stung without any rolling and then instantly 



