THE WOOD-BORERS. 85 



Almost as interesting as rubrocinctum is the slightly larger 

 species, T. albopilosum. This wasp has a great liking for the 

 posts that support the balcony of our cottage, a preference that 

 is very convenient for us, as it enables us to sit in the shade and 

 watch their doings at our ease. 



One afternoon as we sat, literally, at our posts, a female of 

 albopilosum came humming along, looking very important and 

 energetic, as though she had planned beforehand exactly what 

 to do. She entered an empty hole, head first, and at once began 

 to gnaw at the wood, kicking it out backwards with considerable 

 violence. After a few minutes she changed her method of 

 work, and began to carry out loads of wood dust in her mandi- 

 bles, dropping it in little showers just outside the nest, and then 

 hastening back. In forty minutes she carried out, in this way, 

 upwards of fifty loads. She then flew away, but returned in 

 ten minutes with a male. She alighted, he took Ms place on 

 her back and they went in together. 



After a time they came out and both flew away, but the next 

 morning they came back and the nest was stored. 



In this species the male does not always come out of the nest 

 when the female brings a spider. Perhaps the nest is enough 

 larger than in rubrocinctum to accommodate them both com- 

 fortably. As a usual thing, however, he enters on the back of 

 the female. The spiders brought by albopilosum are larger than 

 those used by rubrocinctum. They sometimes bring such heavy 

 specimens of Epeira insularis that they are carried with diffi- 

 culty, the wasp alighting and dragging the spider into the hole 

 instead of flying directly in as usual. 



We watched a number of albopilosum nests during the sec- 

 ond summer, finding them in several instances through the loud 

 humming of the female while she was pushing the spiders into 

 her hole. From our not very extensive study of the spiders 

 taken by this species we are of the opinion that some are killed 

 at the moment of capture, and that those that are only paral- 

 yzed die in the nest from day to day. 



Mr. W. H. Ashmead has noted that albopilosum stores its nest 



