The Nest-building Odynerus 



the Odynerus group executes the most dis- 

 similar tasks, because each species has its 

 predetermined skill, its art that governs the 

 tool and is not governed by it. How 

 plainly this conclusion would appear had I 

 been privileged to review the entire Ody- 

 nerus genus 1 How many industries remain 

 for us to see, with the tool undergoing no 

 modification! I suggest investigations on 

 these lines to whomsoever it may concern, 

 were it only in order to shed a little light 

 upon this numerous and difficult group, of 

 which the future will, I trust, give us a lu- 

 cid classification based upon its industrial 

 guilds. 



Let us leave these generalities and pass to 

 the detailed story of the Nest-building 

 Odynerus. There are few Wasps with 

 whose private life I am better acquainted; 

 and I owe this abundant information to cir- 

 cumstances which, for me, impart a double 

 value to the facts, because of the pleasant 

 memories evoked. I had often extracted 

 the Nest-building Odynerus' series of cells 

 from the old galleries of the Anthophorae; 

 I knew that the insect occupies dwellings not 

 dug with its own mandibles and that its la- 

 bours are confined to the partitions; I knew 

 its yellow larva and its slender, amber-hued 

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