SENSE OF DIRECTION 



she reached the end, and wending her way leisurely 

 back along the next row. Then comes a day when we 

 see her running over the ground and looking carefully 

 under the weeds for a good nesting-place. At last a spot 

 is selected and she begins to dig ; but two or three times 

 before the work is completed she goes away for a short 

 flight. When it is done, and covered over, she flies 

 away, but returns again and again within the next few 

 hours, to look at the spot and, perhaps, to make some 

 little alteration in her arrangements. From this time on, 

 until the caterpillars are stored and the egg laid, she 

 visits her nest several times a day, so that she becomes 

 perfectly familiar with the neighborhood, and it is not 

 surprising, after all, that she is able to carry her prey 

 from any point in her territory in a nearly direct line 

 to her hole — we say nearly direct, for there was almost 

 invariably some slight mistake in the direction which 

 made a little looking about necessary before the exact 

 spot was found. 



After days passed in flying about the garden — going 

 up Bean Street and down Onion Avenue, time and 

 time again — one would think that any formal study 

 of the precise locality of a nest might be omitted; but 

 it was not so with our wasps. They made repeated 

 and detailed studies of the surroundings of their nests. 



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