WASPS. - 185 



tinally ten were completed. Being cylindrical, the 

 cells only touched one another, leaving a little hol- 

 low between each. This hollow was filled up with 

 mud until the whole presented a fairly even surface. 



The ten cells were built in a fortnight. During 

 the building a rather strange thing happened. We 

 watched the wasp fly up to the nest with its load, 

 and as it was starting out for another, we caught it 

 with a net. Within a couple of hours, another 

 wasp appeared and continued the work. 



The story of the wasp is not finished, for later 

 on out from each tiny Qgg placed in each separate 

 cell came a legless grub, which immediately began 

 to suck the juices from the bodies of the spiders. 

 The food supply lasted till the grub was full grown, 

 a period of from lO to 15 days. Then inside the cell 

 it formed an oval cocoon. In this it changed to the 

 pupa, a white helpless looking object with three 

 pairs of legs folded on the under surface of the body. 

 The transformation continued, until one day the 

 mud cap was pushed off from one cell and then 

 another, and out from each struggled the fully de- 

 veloped slender bodied wasp. 



In country districts in New South Wales every 

 child calls this particular mud dauber a ''hornet," 

 and dreads it, fearing its sting, but it is not known 

 to be agressive, or to sting people. 



