162 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [14:4— April, 1918 



its way out of the mud cradle, dry its wings in the sunshine, and fly 

 away without ever having seen its mother. 



The wasp had finished the fourth of her cells and had stored it 

 with two spiders, but she must find many more to fill it. The sun 

 was very warm and she flew slowly. Through her strange com- 

 pound eyes she saw green, sunny things and bright flowers, and 

 many insects flying by. She was flying low and watching for 

 spiders, when she came close to the steps of a porch. She could 

 not see the house nor the porch nor even all of the steps, but her 

 many eyes showed her a vast, dark place and white wood. She 



flew quickly toward it, 

 under the lowest step. 

 There would be spiders 

 here, no doubt, said 

 the strange instinct 

 that had taught her all 

 she knew of wasp life. 

 It was this silent, hid- 

 den instinct that had 

 taught her to use so 

 deftly her fine, sharp 

 mandibles and long, 

 thread-like fore-legs 

 and to build the exqui- 

 site clay tubes where 

 she had laid her eggs. And the same secret thing that she trusted 

 though she had never seen it, was bidding her store spiders in each 

 wasp cradle, though I think she never knew the winter was coming 

 nor even, perhaps, that her little grubs would be hungry. She 

 worked and worked joyfully — but perhaps she never asked or 

 guessed why! 



So she flew under the step — and was stopped, with a shiver, in 

 mid air by threads she had failed to see, or to feel with her quick 

 antennas. The threads were almost too fine to see in the shadow, 

 but were sticky and clinging. She shuddered with a deadly 

 instinctive fear, and pushed with all the strength of her wings and 

 legs, but the threads clung more closely and tightened and en- 

 tangled themselves in the fine hairs on her legs. Then the whole 

 wheel web shivered as a shadow dropped from beneath the step, and 

 the wasp felt two swift, sure, thread-like legs tickling the tips of her 

 own legs. 



a. 



d. 



A mud-dauber and her nests, with cells cut open 

 showing a, larva full grown; b, cocoon; c, 

 young larva feeding on its spider-meat and d, 

 an empty cell. 



