128 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



beside her, almost touching her, lay another beetle of the 

 same 1 kind, the sixth one, which she had just brought in 

 and dropped. The site was so thoroughly mutilated, with 

 no entrance visible, that it was wonderful that she could 

 recognize the spot at all, and far more so that she should 

 persist in burrowing into the dishevelled earth in an at- 

 tempt to reach the chamber. The appearance of the place 

 was completely altered, and yet she unfalteringly delved into 

 the heap of fresh earth at precisely the right spot to reach 

 her old nest. Hence, unless the sense of smell was a factor, 

 it was indeed mysterious how she could, without any re- 

 connoitering, locate the precise spot in this large barren 

 area. 



To show how individual temperament enters into the hom- 

 ing problem, and how one cannot lay down hard and fast 

 rules for the species as a whole by observing a small number 

 of cases, let us cite the interesting notes by Hartman 1 

 on the behavior of this wasp. He found one carrying a 

 weevil (Conotrachelus neocrategi) into her nest which 

 was situated on the edge of a five-foot embankment, under 

 a bush about two feet high. The next day he returned and 

 cut the bush off at the roots and placed it three feet to 

 the right. Soon fumipenms returned and flew not to her nest 

 but to the bush which had been placed to one side. "After 

 discovering her mistake she flew away to get another start, 

 came down again from between two trees and flew to the 

 bush. Since she repeated this performance at least a dozen 

 times without finding the nest, it is safe to conclude that it 

 was the bush that directed her flight. Moreover the wasp 

 always flew down from the same direction, showing that 

 earlier in her course she was directed by other objects, es- 

 pecially trees." 



1 Bull. Univ. Tex. No. 65 : 66. 1905. 



