72 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



another of even more interest. As I took my 

 seat upon the door-step I started into flight a big 

 black wasp, upon whose doings I had evidently 

 been intruding. 



This wasp was much larger than the one just 

 described, being about an inch in length. Its 

 wings were pale brown and its body jet-black, 

 with sundry small yellowish spots about the 

 thorax. But its most conspicuous feature, and 

 one which would ever fix the identity of the creat- 

 ure, was the long, slender, wire-like waist, occupy- 

 ing a quarter of the length of its entire body. 



In a moment or two the wasp had returned, 

 and stood at the mouth of the shallow pit. Ey- 

 ing me intently for a space, and satisfied that 

 there was nothing to fear, she dived into the hol- 

 low and began to excavate, turning round and 

 round as she gnawed the earth at the bottom, and 

 shovelling it out with her spiked legs. Now and 

 then she would back out of the burrow to recon- 

 noitre, and her alert attitude at such times was 

 very amusing — her antennae drooping towards the 

 burrow and in incessant motion ; the abdomen 

 on its long wire stem bobbing up and down at 

 regular intervals, accompanied by a flipping mo- 

 tion of the wings ; the short fore legs, one or both, 

 upraised with comical effect. 



