184 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



to remove, projecting into the gallery; this now obstructed 

 the way so she had trouble in getting her property in, but 

 she worked strenuously inside the hole, and, with our assist- 

 ance on the outside, worked her locust in after five min- 

 utes' labor. Again Stizus was seen lurking about in the 

 vicinity of the nest. 



P. Thomae came out and filled her hole carefully, first by 

 carrying in mouthfuls of soil and precisely arranging it on 

 the inside, and then kicking more dirt in and going in after 

 it to pound it down, making a loud hum as she pressed with 

 all her strength against the tightening soil. In getting dirt 

 to fill in, she first 'took that nearest the hole and when this 

 was gone, instead of taking all of the earth which she had 

 kicked into a hill, she dug at the foot of this tiny hill and 

 hollowed out a semicircular space just as we have seen 

 P. atratum do (fig. 37). Of course, as she dug at the foot 

 of the pile, she undermined it and much of the dirt tumbled 

 down and rolled into or near to the cavity where she needed 

 it. When the hole was half covered, she was again visited 

 by Stizus, but she at once gave chase and the meddlesome 

 intruder fled. The task of filling and covering was con- 

 tinued, and when this was done, several cinders, large in 

 size but of light weight (see fig. 42, exact size), were 

 brought in the mandibles and placed over the spot. A col- 

 lection of twelve such cinders was taken from her mouth, 

 with the forceps, as she brought them to the place; this 

 shows how tame she was or how accustomed to our presence 

 she had grown. She surrendered the cinders to us peace- 

 ably and without defiance; however, we did not pull them 

 away from her but merely held them firmly with the forceps 

 so she could not move them further. So she gave them up, or 

 she may have merely thought that they were too heavy or 

 too tightly lodged for her to move. After a few more kicks, 

 she abruptly flew away. 



