72 Psyche [June 



the plaster with the eggs, grubs, inquihnes and every other inhabi- 

 tant of the nest. They do, however, gather to protect their queens. 

 I have had nests in which queens were caught by the legs and their 

 protectors kept the plaster from covering them. One such lay 

 on my table for a month. Three surviving ants watched over the 

 queen. I furnished food, so that it is probable that they died of 

 old age, rather than starvation. 



So much for the easy part, the pouring of the plaster. The 

 novice, too eager to see his results, digs out the cast on the same 

 day, and the wet plaster, still soft, breaks into a hundred pieces. 

 The best way is to make a cast one w^eek end and dig it out the 

 next. Then you have a chance of getting your cast home. 



The digging out requires first that a pit be dug alongside not 

 closer than a foot from the vertical, otherwise the spade may strike 

 the tube. This must be deeper than the estimated depth of the 

 whole tube. An ordinary table knife is the next useful implement. 

 Beginning near the bottom the earth must be dissected away, 

 never roughly or hastily, until the plaster tube is detected. Then 

 a still more delicate knife, or spatula, comes into play. The cast 

 must be wholly freed from the bottom first. If near the top, it 

 will surely fall and break. It is a veritable triumph, causing feel- 

 ings of hilarious elation, to detect the bottom of a bee burrow and 

 progress until all the clay cells containing the grubs, etc., are fully 

 exposed for half their circumference, and then to uncover the tube, 

 about as thick as a lead pencil and extending, may be, five feet 

 without a branch. 



There are no especial seasons for making casts. Burrows are 

 clean mouthed and inhabited from early spring until frost time. 

 It is well, however, to choose burrows which show" fresh earth 

 around them. After every rain the occupant has to clean house, 

 and the result invariably shows. Surface sand burns white. At a 

 depth of six inches it is almost always colored yellow by iron 

 oxides. The yellow upcasts betray the situation. The bees are 

 especially vexatious. The female often digs a score of holes before 

 adopting one permanently. I have w^atched a species of gray bee 

 flitting and lighting for hours, She kicked away soil with hind legs 

 with marvelous rapidity, until in fewer than twenty seconds she 

 would be entirely out of sight. If she encountered a peb])le she 

 abandoned the hole, or backed out with pebble held by her 



