i 4 2 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



clue to the probable reason for this wasp persistently choos- 

 ing a damp, cool place for her nest : only in such surround- 

 ings could the food be kept fresh and moist. The wasps con- 

 tinued to be seen during all of the season up until October 7. 

 in widely separated places, but always in permanently damp 

 situations. 



Some variation occurs in the form of the tops of the nests. 

 At Moselle, the entering wasp worked its way between the 

 pellets of a little mound of loose soil, and these would again 

 fall together and cover the hole after the wasp had disap- 

 peared within. There were others with a little chimney or 

 canopy of mud. At Lake View, Kansas, in the sand a few 

 feet from the water's edge, we found several nests under 

 scattered dead leaves, in which case the loose sand was piled 

 behind the hole in a little mound and the opening was in the 

 side of this mound. We even found two nests at the base 

 of a hillside, very steep at this point, twelve inches above the 

 level ground. Here the holes went in horizontally, at right 

 angles to the surface, for a little way and then turned 

 downward. Much loose soil had rolled down the steep in- 

 cline beneath the orifice, and two beautiful canopies made 

 by the wasps projected for one-fourth inch above the 

 holes. We were surprised to find A. melleus in so dry a 

 place as this was, but when we dug down to the chamber we 

 found the earth very damp and gummy. 



The group of them at Lake View, Kansas, on a plot of wet 

 sand near the the lake shore, conducted themselves in a way 

 that puzzled us. They were all running this way and that, 

 w r ith heads close to the ground, as if anxiously searching 

 for something. They looked more like a group of large 

 red ants in confusion than wasps. All this activity was 

 confined to a space less than four feet square, and it went on 

 for over a half-hour while we could remain to watch them, 

 yet they did not find what they wanted. At one time one 



