THE BEMBICENE WASPS n 



surprising accuracy, on a level about one and one-half to 

 two inches above the ground. No digging or any other en- 

 terprise could be seen; every citizen of the colony was ming- 

 ling in the graceful sun-dance, doing his part blithely and 

 heartily but not too obtrusively. The whole was not a 

 helter-skelter commotion, but a merry whirl to the music of 

 a faint, eerie hum of many wings, with every few moments 

 a rather musical crescendo, which sounded like "zip!," 

 when a whirling pair would suddenly dash off at triple speed 

 on the wing, in the final fling of joyful abandon, for five or 

 six feet, at a speed the eye could scarcely follow. But only 

 for a part of a second did this shrill note come from the 

 highly-vibrant wings; for then the pair separated and re- 

 turned to the swarm and were instantly lost among their 

 fellows, weaving their way in and out the maze, hovering 

 back and forth in large circles or, with other partners, 

 whirling once around in tiny circles. 



In these wild dashes, in which two wasps invariably par- 

 ticipated, they grasped each other as if in a violent embrace 

 for just the instant, but we could not ascertain further de- 

 tails, for their movements at this point were so rapid that 

 the eye could not follow them; in the twinkling of an eye 

 they had returned to the common maze again. While we 

 suspected that these embraces were acts of copulation, we 

 had no actual proof. We at once called the performance a 

 sun-dance, yet it must not be understood that they followed 

 an up-and-down or vertical dancing movement ; on the con- 

 trary, they flew with a rhythmical, gliding motion, like a 

 skater taking one long, smooth stroke after another with 

 scarcely a pause between them. They glided thus to and 

 fro in the prescribed area singly, but frequently two would 

 playfully or flirtatiously whirl around each other with- 

 out touching (this movement we called waltzing), after 

 which both would usually drop back into the glide with the 



