JUAN VINAS— AROUND THE LAGUNA 175 



pair to the hindermost when she gave it a hard kick and sent 

 it flying. This excavating was repeated about a dozen times, 

 and sometimes the pellet was kicked a distance of three to 

 four inches. The wasp then seized the katydid in her jaws — 

 I think grasping it by one antenna — and backed in with it. 

 She stayed down several minutes and a great humming 

 went on; probably she laid an egg on the katydid but that 

 we did not see. Coming out head first she ran to the loose 

 earth she had carried up and kicked a little pile toward and 

 into the burrow. Turning round she shoved down with her 

 head such particles as were caught on the edge of the tunnel, 

 then ran in head first and probably rammed the earth hard 

 with her head; at least that is the usual procedure. This 

 she repeated ten or twelve times, then came out and flew 

 away leaving the mouth of the burrow open and unpro- 

 tected. We waited for her nearly half an hour, but in vain, 

 so we shall never know whether she abandoned the burrow 

 or was unlucky in her hunting trip. 



Among the coffee on the eastern slope of the crater 

 stood a tree with hanging nests of a yellow-tailed oriole or 

 "oropendola." As we could approach very near to these 

 nests we decided on June 30 to photograph them with — 

 if possible — one or two of the birds themselves on the nests. 

 So everything was made ready and we waited three-quarters 

 of an hour for the birds. But although they sat on nearby 

 trees and finally actually visited the nests, their entrance 

 to the nests was so skillful and their stay so short that our 

 pictures although good of the nests do not show a single 

 bird. There are two commonly found species of oropendolas 

 in Costa Rica. This one at Juan Viiias was the upland and 

 Pacific species {Zarhynchus wagleri zvagleri); its average 

 length is fourteen inches in the male, ten and one-half in 

 the female. The lowland oropendola of the Atlantic slope 

 (Gymnostinops montezuma) is larger, nineteen and one-half 



