10 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



to be present at the all-important moment that we might see for 

 ourselves just how and where Ammophila urnaria stings her 

 victim. 



For a whole week of scorching summer weather we lived in 

 the bean patch, scorning fatigue. We quoted to each other the 

 example of Fabre's daughter Claire, whose determination to 

 solve the problem of Odynerus led to a sun-stroke. We fol- 

 lowed scores of wasps as they hunted; we ran, we threw our- 

 selves upon the ground, we scrambled along on our hands and 

 knees in our desperate endeavors to keep them in view, and yet 

 they escaped us. After we had kept one in sight for an hour or 

 more some sudden night would carry her far away and all our 

 labor was lost. 



At last, however, our day came. We were doing a little 

 hunting on our own account, hoping to find some larvae which 

 we could drop in view of the wasps and thus lead them to dis- 

 play their powers, when we saw an urnaria fly/ up from the 

 ground to the underside of a bean leaf and knock down a small 

 green caterpillar. Breathless with an excitement which will be 

 understood by those who have tasted the joy of such a moment, 

 we hung over the actors in our little drama. The ground was 

 bare, we were close by and could see every motion distinctly. 

 Nothing more perfect could have been desired. 



The wasp attacked at once but was rudely repulsed, the cater- 

 pillar rolling and unrolling itself rapidly and with the most 

 violent contortions of the whole body. Again and again its ad- 

 versary descended but failed to gain a hold. The caterpillar 

 in its struggles, flung itself here and there over the ground, and 

 had there been any grass or other covering near by it might have 

 reached a place of partial safety, but there was no shelter within 

 reach, and at the fifth attack the wasp succeeded in alighting 

 over it, near the anterior end, and in grasping its body firmly 

 in her mandibles. Standing high on her long legs and disre- 

 garding the continued struggles of her victim she lifted it from 

 the ground, curved the end of her abdomen under its body, 

 and darted her sting between the third and fourth segments. 



