ANIMAL BEHAVIOR, WITH EXAMPLES 197 



wood, about a third of an inch in length, and carrying it three 

 inches to the place where the entrance formerly lay she leaned 

 strongly forward on it, almost standing on her head, while 

 she pressed the object against the ground. A rusty iron 

 shingle nail happened to he conveniently within reach, which 

 was next seized with her mandibles and forcibly pressed on the 

 ground beside the wood. Notwithstanding that the nail was an 

 inch long and of considerable weight, she lifted it up and down 

 and planted it several times with considerable ease. 



Again I saw her busily turn her attention first to bits of twigs, 

 then to little uneven places in the earth, which she dispersed 

 back of her by a rapid scratching motion of her feet. Finally 

 she varied these performances by twice going to small green 

 leaves of a creeping spurge plant, which she cut off very cleanly 

 with her mandibles and laid directly over the former doorway. 

 No one could doubt that these actions were done with a view 

 to conceal perfectly all traces of her precious hidden treasure. 

 After these final actions and as she was seemingly ready to 

 depart, I seized her in an insect net for identification.^ Upon 

 this point I will have something more to add in the sequence. 



At this time I had gleaned but a partial knowledge of the 

 contents of the Sphex's nest. Upon carefully digging down 

 beside the burrow with a trowel and table knife, I found that 

 by cutting the ground away at the side, the course of the nest 

 could be determined by the dry powdered condition of the 

 recently filled-in dirt. As a result of this search I found the 

 tube was made to incline obliquely downward, five inches. 

 Then the burrow suddenly enlarged at the bottom into a pocket 

 which was compactly stored with three female and one male 

 green meadow grasshopper. All of these insects had their 

 heads directed the same way, looking forward, their legs collec- 

 tively pointing backwards into the burrow. They were, more- 

 over, practically all lying horizontally on their sides. Each 

 one exhibited signs of life by rhythmical movements of the 

 abdomen, though entirely quiescent in their other organs. The 

 top grasshopper, which would seem to be the last one taken 

 into the burrow, had the wasp's egg attached to the ventral 



' This insect was identified as Sphex ichneumonea by the late Dr. William H. 

 Ashmead. 



