THE MASONS 227 



elaborately decorated with round white 

 circles over all the screw-holes. 



One Odynerus in this country makes a 

 many-compartmented mud-nest as large as 

 a hen's egg, and attaches it to a bush. 



The mud-wasps make a separate cell for 

 each larva, and this great amount of labour 

 is perhaps rendered necessary by the car- 

 nivorous character of the young. 



It may be true that " birds in their little 

 nests agree," but it does not follow that 

 wasps in their little nests agree. The 

 probabilities are that these voracious in- 

 fants, if more than one occupied the same 

 cell, would eat each other up. Not be- 

 cause they were wicked, but because they 

 were very young, and very hungry, and 

 did not know the diflference between 

 spider and brother-larva. 



Wasp larvae eagerly feed upon each 

 other if the nests are broken and the oc- 

 cupants spilled out, as happens to some 



