8o WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



recognized that it had been tampered with. Then she turned 

 her abdomen toward the spider and held it thus, hugging 

 it closely for some seconds; we suspected that the wasp 

 was stinging it again, but she was so deep in the crevice 

 that we could not see distinctly. She then went deeper into 

 the cavity between the stones and flung out another half- 

 dozen kicks of dust. Unfortunately, at this point she spied 

 us lying flat on the ground to scrutinize her, so she darted 

 away to another part of the wall and entered another niche, 

 and remained there so long that we thought she would 

 carry her spider there. She suddenly emerged from this 

 retreat and escaped. We waited an hour for her return, 

 but she seemed shy, so we wandered away, returning every 

 three or six minutes to look for her. 



While thus loitering about waiting we took a trowel and, 

 at a point in the wall about thirty feet away, idly removed 

 from the foundation the hard, black cement which covered 

 the soft mortar beneath, thinking thereby to make an at- 

 tractive spot for other wasps. After a time, we lost pa- 

 tience, however, and decided to work elsewhere. We knew 

 the species of the wasp, the place where her spider lay was 

 marked, and we knew where she had dug her cavity in the 

 mortar, so it was decided to leave her in peace and return 

 later to get the spider with the egg on it. 



Upon returning in a half -hour, imagine our surprise upon 

 finding the spider gone. It seemed scarcely probable that 

 another had come along and purloined it, because, from 

 her previous actions, it appeared that she was going^ to 

 change her nesting-place. Now it was a task to find the 

 spider, and for another half -hour we dug into the mortar 

 in various suspicious-looking places in search of it. Sud- 

 denly a passing gleam of color caught our eye; the wasp 

 flew past, ignoring her old location and alighting on the 

 wall thirty feet beyond. We watched her carefully as she 



