THE OXE-BAXDED DAUBER 63 



sense of direction that lands the white-footed wasp in a single flight 

 at her doorway. 



In the wooden shutters of the laboratory, I found further evidence 

 of the dauber's stupidity. For a nesting site, she had selected in 

 this case the narrow edge of a slat, situated midway between the top 

 and bottom of the shutter. Below her site were a dozen other slats, 

 each affording a building plot similar in every way to the one she 

 had selected. Above her were as many more. This made her work 

 difficult; as it finally proved, too difficult for her limited sense of 

 direction. She laid the foundation of her nest in a maze of sites, 

 each exactly like those above and below, and in the end her design 

 perished. Her pellets of mud were deposited upon four different 

 slats, one below the other, until four different cells, three inches apart, 

 commenced to take form. Arriving laden with her ball of mud she 

 would fly to the general location of her original foundation, but to 

 distinguish which slat among so many similar ones supported her 

 original masonry was quite beyond her. Thus she worked, vainly 

 endeavoring to finish her nursery in the usual space of time, laboring 

 the while on four widely separated cells! Eventually she abandoned 

 the job in despair, and indeed it must have been discouraging. To 

 return, hour after hour, laboriously carrying that heavy mortar to 

 a house that refused to grow, might easily discourage a stouter heart 

 than the dauber's. 



That she concentrated her efforts entirely upon four slats was an 

 interesting fact. It gives us some idea to what degree of perfection 

 her senses of smell and direction are developed. The first slat bear- 

 ing evidences of her workmanship was situated twelve inches above 

 the fourth and lowest one. Xow as the wasp always returned, with 

 her pellets, to one of these four, it is logical to suppose that her 

 sense of direction was developed accurately enough to bring her 

 within twelve inches of the actual location of her nest. Observation 



