WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



summer, and found them all very much alike, much 

 more so than is the case with other species. The en- 

 trance tunnel runs in obliquely for from three to five 

 inches below the surface of the ground, and ends in a 

 pocket. 



We grow accustomed to marvels, and from our famil- 

 iarity with other wasps we take as a matter of course the 

 unerring accuracy with which Bembex swoops down 

 upon the exact spot at which the entrance to her nest is 

 hidden. And yet how strange a power it is ! There is not 

 the least sign to help her not a stone, not a blade of 

 grass is to be seen on the field. Our method of marking 

 a nest which we wished to find again was to place tiny 

 pebbles at exactly equal distances from it, one on either 

 side, so that the middle point of the straight line between 

 them gave us the desired spot ; and the wasp doubtless 

 uses the same method, only her landmarks are some- 

 times so infinitesimal that we do not recognize them. 



Bouvier finds that when he cuts away the plants 

 around the nest of B. labiatus, clearing a space of 

 twenty-eight or thirty inches square, the wasp is much 

 confused, flying about for a long time before she is able 

 to find her home. He once placed a flat stone over the 

 entrance. The wasp alighted upon it, and after scratch- 

 ing vainly for a while made her way in. The stone was 

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