42 SANTAREM. ■ Chap. I. 



with small spiders of the genus Gastracantha, in thus 

 usual half-dead state to which the mother wasps 

 reduce the insects which are to serve as food for their 

 progeny. 



Besides the Pelopseus there were three or four kinds 

 of Trypoxylon, a genus also found in Europe, and 

 which some Naturalists have supposed to be parasitic, 

 because the legs are not furnished with the usual row 

 of strong bristles for digging, characteristic of the family 

 to which it belongs. The species of Trypoxylon, however, 

 are all building wasps ; two of them which I observed 

 (T. albitarse and an undescribed species) provision 

 their nests with spiders, a third (T. aurifrons) with 

 small caterpillars. Their habits are similar to those of 

 the Pelopseus ; namely, they carry off the clay in their 

 mandibles, and have a different song when they hasten 

 away with the burthen, to that which they sing whilst 

 at work. Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black 

 kind, three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tre- 

 mendous fuss whilst building its cell. It often chooses 

 the walls or doors of chambers for this purpose, and when 

 two or three are at work in the same place their loud 



humming keeps the house 

 in an uproar. The cell is 

 a tubular structure about 

 three inches in length. T. 

 aurifrons, a much smaller 

 species, makes a neat 



Cells of Trypoxylon aurifrons. little nest shaped like a 



carafe ; building rows of 

 them together in the corners of verandahs. 



