l68 FIELD ZOOLOGY. 



usually fall to the ground, where they may fall a prey 

 to any watchful sparrow. 



The ant colony is practically perpetual, owing to the 

 facts that branch colonies are added indefinitely to the 

 parent colony, and that the ant mothers are unusually 

 long-lived. Sir John Lubbock, in his interesting book 

 of observations on ants, bees, and wasps, records the 

 fact that he kept two ant mothers six years, and some of 

 the workers in his artificial ant nests lived more than 

 seven years. 



Wasps. 



Comstock divides the wasps into the Sphecina and 

 the Vespina. The Sphecina are those wasps that have 

 the habit of burrowing into the ground or into wood to 

 make provision for their young, though there are some 

 peculiarities of nest-choosing even within the class of 

 the Sphecina. All of them are solitary; that is, each 

 female makes provision for her own young. The male 

 does not live long beyond the time of mating, the third 

 example among the hymenopters of the subordination of 

 the male in the economy of the species. 



The true digger wasps, those typical of the class, 

 make burrows in the ground, provisioning them, and 

 laying one egg in each burrow. The spider wasps, so- 

 called because they provision their burrows with spiders, 

 as a rule burrow into the ground after the manner of 

 the family to which they belong ; but others of them make 

 a nest of mud which they attach to the under side of some 

 stone, while others still live as guests in the nests of other 

 digger wasps. 



The thread-waisted wasps, known as mud-daubers, 

 fasten their clay nests up in the corners of our verandas 



