12 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



others, although sometimes they would conclude with one 

 of the wild dashes and embraces just described. 



The liveliest part of the dance, when the participants were 

 most numerous, occurred from 9:30 to 10 a. m. By 10:30 

 they were fewer in number and droning wearily along, and 

 by 1 1 o'clock, when we were obliged to leave the field, both 

 the activity and numbers were greatly reduced, although we 

 could not discern whither they were disappearing. 



Two days later we returned to the field at 7 a. m., eager 

 to witness the continuance of this performance and learn 

 more of its mysteries. The holes were all open, as before; 

 but some minutes elapsed before the first drowsy Bembix 

 appeared and took up the low, gliding flight of the day be- 

 .fore. Presently others joined it and by 7:30 five were in 

 the flight, gracefully weaving to and fro and occasionally 

 resting for a moment on the grey earth. We did not detect 

 whence they came. They limited their flight strictly to a 

 bare area, which was perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, and 

 did not venture out above the grass which surrounded it 

 on all sides. 



By 8 o'clock and during the hour following, perhaps half 

 as many as on the first day were on the field, pursuing the 

 same characteristic low flight, but to-day there was no per- 

 ceptible hum of wings, no embracings, no "waltzes" and very 

 few of the wild, flirtatious dashes. Instead, from time to 

 time, many were settling on the earth and beginning to dig 

 vigorously. In this digging, they paid no heed to the old 

 holes from which we supposed they had just emerged; but 

 they began energetically digging new burrows, each with a 

 broader, spreading entrance and going down at an angle 

 of approximately 30 to 45 with the surface. It seems 

 that the old holes were merely direct channels of escape 

 from the place where they had lain buried in the earth 

 through the winter, and they did not turn to them at all as 



