WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



the bee occupied only one, two, or three minutes, while 

 at other times she was gone much longer. At each return 

 she stayed only an instant — just long enough to de- 

 posit the bee — inside the nest, and then spent a minute 

 in carefully closing the hole. The wasps that were going 

 in and out of nest No. i sometimes closed it when they 

 went away, but this was done in an untidy fashion, quite 

 different from the nicety and precision of No. 2. 



At half after five o'clock the wasp that had been dig- 

 ging for some httle time at nest No. i flew to nest No. 2, 

 opened it, and attempted to enter, but was quickly 

 driven out by the owner. She then dug a httle in several 

 other places, finally returning to sleep in the family 

 home. On the next day we found that No. 2 was tolerat- 

 ing in her nest one of the females that had not yet begun 

 to hunt, but whether it was the one she had rejected the 

 night before or the fourth member of the sisterhood, we 

 could not tell. On the eighteenth, three days later, the 

 wasp had left this temporary home and made a nest for 

 herself four feet away on the hillside. The males were 

 still living in the first nest with two females. 



When the weather was cold and cloudy punctatus 

 remained closely housed within the nest, or, at most, 

 came out to do an hour's digging, and then disappeared. 

 The warmer the weather, and the more brilliant the 



160 



