46 
The parasitic groups avoid all further labor in behalf of their young 
by simply laying their eggs inside the victim, upon which the larve 
feed at pleasure. The solitary wasps stock their brood cells in ad- 
vance with whole spiders or insects. Some of the social species com- 
minute or mangle their prey, and others, including many of the true 
ants, regurgitate the partly digested food material. The drivers 
probably feed dismembered pieces of their prey lke the keleps. The 
kelep larvee are not so completely helpless as those of bees and true 
ants, being provided with mouth parts adapted for eating cut the 
soft interior tissues of insects, and long, flexible necks to enable them 
to reach inside and clean out the sections of boll weevils laid by the 
workers carefully on the fat stomachs of their baby sisters. Two 
such, lying side by side, each provided with a weevil’s front leg to 
nibble, was the ludicrous sight observed in the nest of one of the 
captive colonies in Texas. Mrs. Cook has noted another instance 
of feeding which well illustrates the extent to which the social 
organization has developed in this respect. 
A worker seized a termite as soon as it was dropped into the nest and held 
it in its jaws for fully five minutes, the termite vigorously protesting with its 
antennie. After it was dead, or at least motionless, the kelep took it below 
where other workers assisted in feeding it to a large larva. It was very 
hard to get the termite properly placed; time and again it fell from where it 
had been put, and was turned over and twisted in all sorts of ways in the 
effort to bring it into a position so that the larva might take hold of its head. 
The larva meanwhile moved its own head back and forth, evidently trying to 
get hold on its own account, and a little larva near by did secure a hold on the 
other end of the termite, so that the keleps had to move both larva and termite 
in their further efforts to give the latter to the large larva. The little larva 
was almost as large as the termite. Finally the matter was arranged, the ter- 
mite lying across the two laryie, which remained peacefully side by side, the big 
one eating at the head, the little one at the tail. A worker had to take the 
head of the big larva between his jaws and fore legs and put it in contact with 
the termite, and then stood over it as though to see that the larva did its duty. 
The weight of the small larva kept pulling the termite off the body of the large 
larva before it had become firmly attached, so a worker stayed by and kept pull- 
ing the termite back in position. Finally the large larva got to work in earnest, 
and the faithful nurse left to help another kelep with another termite. 
USE OF FIBERS IN CONSTRUCTION. 
A possible reminiscence of an upper air existence by social ances- 
tors of the kelep is to be found in a curious tube or gallery 
which is often constructed at the entrance of the nest to extend the 
underground passage upward on the stem of the cotton plant or 
other object to which the opening of the nest is adjacent. The 
workers always prefer to dig against something rather than in the 
open ground. The tubular structure in question may be only an 
inch or less in length, but 1t sometimes extends upward for 5 or 6 
