THE SPIDER-HUNTERS 



her, fearing that she was becoming discouraged and 

 that she might presently depart to be seen no more. 

 Had there been any prospect of her solving the diffi- 

 culty that beset her our patience might have held out 

 to the end, but this was evidently a case in which there 

 was a failure of instinct, or intelligence, or whatever 

 faculty was concerned. 



More than a year passed before we had another op- 

 portunity of solving this problem of scelestus, and the 

 pleasure with which we hailed her second appearance 

 in our garden may be easily imagined. This time the 

 wasp had made her nest, but was not ready to fill it, and 

 when we first saw her she was running about without 

 any particular aim in view, although at the tune we 

 supposed her to be hunting. Before long she went and 

 took a look at the neat round hole which she had made 

 near the fence that separates the garden from the woods. 

 The earth that had been taken out either had been 

 carried to a distance or had been swept away after the 

 digging was completed, for there was no pile to be seen. 

 This was at two o'clock of a cloudy afternoon. It may 

 be that she needed the stimulus of sunshine to make 

 her hunt, or perhaps she realized that what was left of 

 the day would not give her sufficient time to capture her 

 spider and bring it home. At any rate, she spent the 

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