64 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



the larvae, leave their young to take care of themselves. 

 They are less robust than the Vespidce, and though still 

 yellow-banded, have a much larger proportion of black 

 about their bodies. 



It is only very occasionally that we find solitary 

 wasps in our houses ; their young feed upon small 

 caterpillars and other insects, and the chief business 

 of the parents' life is to provide a stock of these, so 

 that they have not the temptation to intrude on our 

 privacy which the Vespidw have, for the latter are 

 almost omnivorous, and there are plenty of things in 

 our houses which suit their taste admirably. The solitary 

 wasps of the genus Odynerus do, however, sometimes 

 construct their small nests in the most outlandish 

 places. The nests consist of separate cells, each closed 

 in and complete in itself, and devoted to the use of a 

 single grub. Each contains an egg and a store of little 

 caterpillars, each stung by the mother wasp sufficiently 

 to prevent it from being at all lively, but not sufficiently 

 to cause it to dry and shrivel up. 



These little clusters of cells have been found, amongst 

 other strange places, inside the lock of a kitchen door, 

 where, notwithstanding the noise and disturbance caused 

 by the passing and repassing of persons continually 

 going in and out of the kitchen, the mother built 

 cells for her brood, provisioned them, and sealed them 

 up, and the young went through all their metamorphoses 

 successfully, appearing in the kitchen when they had 

 assumed the perfect form, to the no small surprise of 

 its inmates. 



In the keyhole of an eight-day clock-case, too, one 

 family was brought up, appearing to be in no way 

 disturbed by the ticking or periodical winding-up of 

 the clock. They have also been found in the drawer 



