Some Solitary Wasps of Texas. 33 



it, remained inside one minute and came out, closing the nest as 

 before. This time slie flew off without first circling about the nest. 



While the wasp was gone on tlie second hunting trip, a large 

 Mutilled again came along, scratching at a great many places, here 

 and there. Thus also she removed the sand from tlie entrance of 

 the wasp's nest, though she did not enter, but merely looked in and 

 passed on. 



At 11 :33 the wasp came back again with a large gray bug, alight- 

 ing with it just in front of the entrance. I expected her to show some 

 agitation at the disturbance made at her nest by the Mutilled; she 

 appeared not to notice it, however, but holding the large bug with 

 her middle pair of legs and balancing herself on her hind pair, 

 she dug away some sand with her front pair. She then dropped 

 the bug and crawled over it into the burrow. In a few moments 

 she came up, head foremost, grasped the bug by an antenua with her 

 mandible and drew him inside. In one and one-half minutes, she 

 came out again, closed her nest carefully and flew away. 



During the afternoon helfragei came home without a bug. A 

 wagon had just came along and unfortunately cut away several 

 inches of the burrow. Such a widespread disturbance in front of the 

 nest w^ould drive an ordinary wasp out of her wits. But this level- 

 headed bug-catcher seemed, in spite of it, to know just where her 

 nest was located and went to work clearing away the sand that had 

 caved in. As she progressed, more and more sand fell from above and 

 I assisted her by making an arch-way above with a piece of white 

 paste-board to hold up the sand. Soon she had the nest open again 

 and at 4 :33 she flew away, this time leaving the nest open. 



At 8 :25 on the following morning, wagon-wheels had again cov- 

 ered up all the trace of the nest and helfragei was again in a quan- 

 dary. Believing that she could not find her nest this time, I pro- 

 ceeded to find it for her by cutting off slices of sand with a hoe in 

 the direction of the nest until I came upon the tunnel four inches 

 from the original entrance. All the time the wasp remained near 

 the hoe like a playful kitten, — a remarkable performance for a 

 wasp. She flew away before I had quite finished but returned in 

 three minutes and went straight into the hole which I had prepared 

 for her, resuming her work as though nothing had happened. 



At 8 :42 the wasp flew away leaving the hole open. At 10 :55 she 

 had been back with a bug, which she took in as before, and had 

 flown away after closing the nest behind her. This was the last 



