Spinning Caterpillars. 



361 



[Fig. 1 represents the nest of a Pelopaeus from Natal. It is 

 made of dried cow-dung, and is fixed to straws. The length 

 is from three to five inches, and there are sometimes found 

 three or more in a row upon a single straw. The insect is 

 about an inch in length, black-blue in colour, and with 

 clouded wings. The abdomen is small, sharply pointed, and 

 placed on a long footstalk. 



fAt Fig. 2 is seen the nest of Pelopceus Flavipes, a North 



Nests of Pelopaeus (1, 2); Anthidium (3) ; Trypoxylon (4) ; and Eumenes (5). 



American insect, which is also fixed along its whole length to 

 the supporting object, which is sometimes a wall, and some- 

 times, as in the illustration, a branch. It is made of mud, 

 and the insects seem to have a sort of gregarious instinct, 

 loving to fix their nests in rows, one above the other. There 

 is only one larva in each cell. The Pelopsei are, by the way, 

 allied to the English genus AmmopJiila. 



