The Nest-building Odynerus 



with game, how many several methods of 

 construction! If we were better-acquainted 

 with the biology of the genus, we should 

 perhaps find architects of almost as many 

 different schools as there are species. My 

 investigations, which were dependent on op- 

 portunity, have as yet borne upon only three 

 of the Odyneri; and these three, with the 

 same implement, the curved, toothed 

 pincers of their mandibles, apply them- 

 selves to the most dissimilar industries. 



One of them, O. reniformis, whose work 

 I have described in an earlier chapter, digs 

 a deep gallery in a hard soil and with the 

 rubbish constructs, at the mouth of her well, 

 a sort of curved chimney, with a guilloche 

 pattern, the materials of which are after- 

 wards again employed to close the abode. 

 Formerly, when I made her acquaintance in 

 front of a steep loamy bank baked by the 

 sun, I whiled away the long hours of wait- 

 ing by conversing, turn and turn about, with 

 the Hoopoe, who taught me how to pro- 

 nounce Latin, and with my Dog, who, lying 

 in the shade of a leafy thicket, cooling his 

 belly in the moist sand, taught me how to 

 practise patience. The Wasp was rare and 

 by no means prodigal of her returns to the 

 nest where I was watching her skilful tac- 

 177 



