61 



and a building insect, having chosen her ground, begins operations by scooping 

 up with her jaws a portion of the soil, and, with the aid of moisture, procured 

 from some neighbouring water supply, moulding it into a pellet, which she fixes 

 on the circumference of the depression she is making, thus forming in due time 

 a parapet, and, as the excavation is progressed with, a great number of ^uch 

 pellets are in turn brought out and fixed, so as to form a tube of filigree work, 

 more or less curved, with the orifice invariably placed downwards. As the 

 tube, like the burrow, is made too narrow to permit of the wasp turning her 

 long body within it, she comes out tail foremost, and settling her hind legs, 

 as mainstays, on the outside of the tube, she, with mandibles and forelegs 

 combined, fixes each pellet in its place, while the forepart of the body and the 

 head are still within the orifice. After settling the pellet in its appointed tier, 

 she proceeds to the excavation for another. When the outer tube has attained 

 the length of from one to two inches or thereabouts, she ceases to build, and 

 drops the superfluous pellets which, falling to the ground, often accumulate in 

 small heaps beneath. I have gathered up some of these, and send them round in 

 a small box.* You will see that our little friend, besides being a burrower, is a 

 builder. These covered ways are outworks to their more secret passages, and 

 may serve in some degree as a protection to them, but, as you will presently 

 hear,not a sufficient fence to keep out the allotted enemies of these builders. 

 There are the t'.bes, whatever may be the purpose they may serve, and very 

 curious structures they are. I have endeavoured to procure a sketch of a re- 

 markable collection of them, which I will now hand round, and I only regret 

 that my skill as an artist is scarcely on a par even with my knowledge, imperfect 

 though that be, of entomology. I have derived encouragement and great assist- 

 ance from our President, as well as from Dr. Chapman, and most of my 

 observations have been made in their company. In the sketch I have introduced 

 what pvirpoi'ts to be a section of a part of the wasp's territory, exposing to view 

 three or four of the bun-ows, with the cells and their contents. Let me then 

 go back to the wasp where I left her busily constructing, which she does 

 apparently in sunshine only ; at other times, when the sky is overcast or when 

 the wind blows cold, she ceases to work and keeps close in her burrow. Having 

 scooped out a smooth circular passage about three or four inches deep in the 

 earth, she rounds off the bottom of the cavity and there deposits a pale yellow 

 egg of a cylindrical shape, rounded at each end, and about two lines in length, 

 slightly fixed to the bottom of the cell by a thread of silky web.+ On the top 

 of the egg the mother packs in, one after another, from 20 to 33 larvse, maggots 



* I have observed that sometimes she brings out the pellet, and, taking a, short flight, 

 drops it on the wing ; at others she clings on to the end of the tube and parts with it by 

 a swing of the head. 



t As already remarked the wasp cannot turn in her tube, hence after working in it she 

 comes out backwards, and if the sunshine happens to fall on the filigree work as she is 

 passing down it is curious to see how rapidly the backward exit is performed. On the 

 other hand, when about to lay her egg. she ascends the tube abdomen forwards, and it is 

 interesting to observe how, to accomplish this movement, she smoothes down and settles her 

 wings with her bindlegs, to prevent them catching over the edge of the tube. 



