THE BLUE HUNTRESS 71 



and become dangerous fare for the young wasps. Instead, it is 

 simply paralyzed. It will never move again to protest, or protect 

 itself. Perhaps it may react automatically with a slight quivering of 

 the legs when touched, but henceforth it will yield to whatever fate 

 has in store for it. The victim will awake from unconsciousness only 

 as a part of another living creature, when spider substance has been 

 eaten to build the body of a wasp. 



The spider is a larger creature than the wasp herself, yet she 

 manages to fly laboriously to her nest, carrying her victim by one 

 of its palpi, clasped between her mandibles. To gain access to her 

 nest, she must enter the outhouse through a slatted window, the lowest 

 part of which is three feet from the ground. Once she missed the 

 opening and tumbled with the spider headlong to earth. She was 

 undismayed by the fall, never once relinquishing her hold, but I 

 was struck by the difficulty she experienced in starting once more 

 for the opening. It required the combined strength of legs and wings 

 to drag the creature up the perpendicular wall of the building to the 

 slats of the window. 



Once within, the spider is dragged to the waiting cell, where it is 

 left with head facing the entrance. A yellowish white egg, projectile 

 shape, is now deposited upon the side of its abdomen. This accom- 

 plished, the wasp returns to the outside of the nest. Now comes a 

 thorough personal clean-up before continuing. The forelegs are 

 drawn through her mouth and rubbed briskly over her head and 

 antennas. The hind legs are used in cleaning the wings and abdomen 

 and during the process the wasp stands almost upon her head. In a 

 few minutes she is clean and bright. Doubtless the scrubbing re- 

 freshes her, as a bath puts new vigor into a tired man who has worked 

 faithfully for his family and returned home with the sweat of labor 

 still upon him. 



But her work is not over with the storing of the spider. She has yet 



