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CHAPTER VII 



THE ONE-BANDED DAUBER 



Sceliphron fistulare (Dahlb) 



physiological phases of the dauber's life history natu- 

 rally adhere to a set of invariable rules the egg hatches in 

 a certain length of time, the larva feeds until the spiders in 

 its cell are consumed and in the course of certain definite 

 periods the insect pupates and emerges. Her nest is of clay, her pro- 

 visions spiders, but otherwise, in the remainder of her nesting activi- 

 ties, this wasp is a creature that follows no rule. Her nursery may 

 be but a single earthen cell or it may boast a group of twelve. It 

 may be fastened to a twig, to the side of a house, to a sheltering stone 

 or on the edge of a narrow shutter slat one nest is a long flat object 

 humped at one end with additional cells and decorated with strips 

 of variegated clay, another is top-shaped; still another is but a single 

 gray cell, half circular at one end and quite round at the other. They 

 vary endlessly according to the energy and taste of the individual 

 builder, therefore I cannot describe any one nest as the usual type I 

 may tell only of the building of a cell. It may be the first room 

 framed in an elaborate plan, or the completed nest of the dauber, 

 but my remarks will apply to any nest. 



Upon a brick pillar supporting the laboratory the wasp laid the 

 corner-stone of her nest. Twelve loads of brown mud, tamped out 

 into flat pies, side by side, sufficed for the foundation. The material 

 was carried in little round pellets weighing one-tenth of a gram. 

 They were borne in the wasp's mandibles from a moist spot in a flat 



