

BEE-KILLING WASPS in 



to and fro, in semicircles, with her head always toward the 

 hole. The arcs or semicircles of her flight gradually grew 

 wider, and suddenly, with a dash, she flew off across the 

 field. 



On the same day we found, on the firm, bald margin of 

 the boys' baseball diamond (fig. 2), a little mound of very 

 fine dirt, almost indistinguishable from a small ant's hill. 

 It was neither of pellets nor of dust, but of dirt which was 

 granular like corn-meal. A tunnel five inches long led down 

 under this at a slope of forty-five degrees. The hole was 

 not under the center of this mound, but under one edge; 

 the dirt had been thrown out in a neat pile in front of the 

 bore not thrown about indiscriminately like the Bcmbix 

 pile, nor carried to a distance like that of Ammophila. 



We dug it out. The larva had just pupated, but was 

 injured with the trowel when it was unearthed suddenly. 

 The length of the burrow was about twelve inches. 



In the same location, another P. pimctatus flew about 

 and settled upon a characteristic hill of loose soil. The 

 wasp kicked the dirt from the opening, entered and closed 

 the hole by casting up the loose dirt in the tunnel. She 

 stayed in about ten minutes, came out head first by work- 

 ing her way through the loose soil, which fell in and closed 

 behind her, covering the hole. She flew over the nest for 

 a few seconds with a jerky motion (probably the flight 

 of orientation) and then flew away. After some minutes 

 she returned with a bee; this she concealed so well that 

 we could not see it until we got down on all fours to watch 

 her as she opened the nest. She kicked the loose soil away 

 as she did before, and by close scrutiny one could see that 

 she held the bee tightly to the ventral side of her body with 

 the middle pair of legs, while with the first pair she dug 

 out the dirt, and with the hind pair kicked it back. She re- 

 mained within for about five minutes and left, after dosing 



