214 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



appears that she is using this method as a quick way to 

 fill up her hole. But no, she settles herself for work again, 

 grasps the clod firmly in her mandibles and, for a minute 

 or so, she rubs and grinds it fiercely against the bottom of 

 the depression, with a rotary or side-to-side motion, until, 

 under the pressure and wear, the clod crumbles and is worn 

 to dust and becomes part of the compact filling. She then 

 turns round and round on top of the hole, sweeping to the 

 center the dirt which has been pushed out at the edges of the 

 saucer-shaped depression, fetches another clod from some- 

 where within a distance of two or three feet from the hole 

 and repeats the performance. Thus she uses sometimes as 

 many as ten or twelve clods, grinding, beating and biting 

 them to pieces, until the top of the fill is level with the 

 ground. In this way she works the fill down much tighter, 

 for we have often seen her use several pellets and pound 

 them in after the hole appeared level full. 



In her next selection she seems to be more particular. 

 She goes here and yonder, pausing at clods and tiny pebbles, 

 sometimes lifting them or turning them over. When finally 

 she finds one which suits her fancy, usually a pebble a little 

 larger than her head, but sometimes an unusually hard clod 

 or bit of wood, she brings it in her mandibles and, grasping 

 it firmly, she rubs, pounds and hammers down the dirt on 

 the top of the hole until all traces of the fill are obliterated. 

 When she has finished, we ourselves cannot discern the spot. 

 Her task, so skillfully done, is now at an end; she throws 

 her tool aside a few inches and flits away with an utterly 

 careless air, as if she had forgotten all interest whatsoever 

 in this place and quite probably she has. It is interesting 

 to note that she cannot be persuaded to use this tool before 

 the precise time for it. Once we tossed her a tiny pebble 

 while she was yet busy grinding to pieces her clods with a 

 pestle-and-mortar motion, but she only took it, without ado, 



