28 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



start off on another tour when we took her prey from her and 

 placed it in the nest. The wasp remained in the neighborhood 

 for over an hour, but finally disappeared. The nest was not 

 closed, and when we dug it up on the following day it contained 

 only the caterpillar that we had put in. 



Our second example of gracilis promised well in the begin- 

 ning but turned out badly. She was a big, powerful creature 

 and, when we saw her first, was carrying large pellets of earth, 

 in her mandibles, out of her tunnel and flinging them away. 

 This was at two o'clock in the afternoon and within half an hour 

 she had finished the nest and had filled in the upper part of it, 

 but in a very untidy fashion, throwing in some bits of cornstalk 

 and pellets of earth and then scratching in a little dust. 



On the next day, September fourth, the wasp came back at 

 about ten o'clock and spent a few minutes in enlarging the nest, 

 after which she again closed it up. During the remainder of 

 that day we saw her frequently in the neighborhood but on the 

 fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth she visited the nest only once 

 each morning and then disappeared. After the eighth we saw 

 her no more and the nest had not been reopened when we left 

 our country home on September tenth. 



We could usually enter into the feelings of the Ammophilae 

 and understand the meaning of their actions, but we were puz- 

 zled once, when we saw an urnaria that had stored her second 

 caterpillar and closed her nest permanently, spend the rest of 

 her morning in hunting. Why in hunting? She had not dug 

 a nest, she could not lay another egg at once, she did not want a 

 caterpillar, for when we offered her one she stung it and then 

 left it lying on the ground. The sun was bright, the sorrel- 

 blossoms invited her. Surely it would have been the part of a 

 rational wasp to have passed the rest of the day in feasting and 

 fun. 



We have said that urnaria stores two caterpillars but this 

 rule is not without its exception. It was on the last day of the 

 summer, that on a visit to our dear and fruitful potato field, we 

 came upon the Grandmother of all the Ammophiles, for so we 



