WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



its meal, having eaten all that had been provided for 

 it, as well as two dead caterpillars from another 

 nest. 



Much interest attaches to the way in which Odynerus 

 lays her egg, since instead of following the common 

 fashion of fastening it to the prey she suspends it by a 

 tiny filament of web from the wall or ceihng of her cell. 

 Thus in O. reniformis, nesting in the ground, it is hung 

 from the ceiling, a mass of very imperfectly paralyzed 

 caterpillars being collected below, and when the larva 

 comes out the thread lengthens until the tiny jaws reach 

 the food supply. Startle it ever so shghtly and the wasp- 

 ling retreats by way of its web, descending again only 

 when everything is quiet. For twenty-four hours it 

 retains this path to safety, and then, growing bold, it 

 drops down and feeds at its ease. 



We had opened hundreds of plant stems in quest of 

 these suspended eggs without being so fortunate as to 

 find one, and were therefore much pleased when our 

 kind friend. Dr. Sigmund Graenicher, whose interest 

 in bees keeps him in touch with out-of-door happenings, 

 and who has given us much valuable help, brought us 

 two stalks, one of which had in it a nest of O. conformis, 

 while the other contained two freshly provisioned cells 

 of O. anormis. In all three the egg had been hung from 



go 



