ONE-BANDED DAUBER 417 



ing which time the wasp buzzed continually and held her 

 abdomen at the end of its long petiole high in the air, as a 

 balance weight to her lowered head on the other end. The 

 fore legs were used as much as the mandibles, thus her dumb- 

 bell-like body swung pivoted upon the central pair of legs. 



When the foundations were laid she proceeded with the 

 cell itself, bringing thirty loads of mud per hour. In a little 

 over two hours the cell was complete, a neatly rounded tube, 

 thirty millimeters long and sixteen millimeters in diameter, 

 the result of some sixty-five loads of mortar. 



In fashioning the tube, the first few pellets were depos- 

 ited side by side and raised into a semi-circular mound or 

 half disk stood on end. Here again the work was accom- 

 plished with her mandibles and fore legs. The clay was 

 pinched up between the tarsi and then shaped principally 

 with the mandibles which acted like a pair of flattened tongs. 

 When the disk was finished the successive loads of mud were 

 pressed against its inner surface, usually at one side and then 

 moulded into a narrow ridge running around its circumfer- 

 ence. Thereafter each pellet was fashioned into a ribbon of 

 plaster placed against the side of the preceding layer. 

 When the job was finished these individual layers were quite 

 visible so that the separate rings of which the nest was con- 

 structed, could easily be counted. 



In coming to her nest the wasp often experienced great 

 difficulty in locating it. She would approach the brick pil- 

 lar with her mortar pellet, circle the column once and then 

 alight, as a general rule, some distance above or below the 

 nest. A thorough inspection of the spot to which her gen- 

 eral sense of direction brought her, would follow. This in- 

 spection never extended beyond one or two bricks at most. 

 Finding the cell missing, she would take wing, circle the pil- 

 lar once more and alight in a new location. Sometimes this 

 performance was repeated over and over, until at length she 

 would come by chance upon the brick supporting the object 

 of her search. 



