130 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



scratches and digs away with furious energy for a few minutes, 

 and then starting up, she darts wildly hither and thither until 

 a new place, near by, is fixed upon and another beginning made. 

 In one instance eight different nests were started and some of 

 them half made, the little worker seeming to be beside herself 

 with excitement. After the decision is finally made the tun- 

 nelling is a rapid process. In one case it took the wasp a 

 whole hour to complete the work, but out of the thirty nests 

 that we saw made, nineteen were finished in from twenty to 

 twenty-five minutee. Like Fabre's Sphew the wasp interrupts 

 herself three or four times to visit her spider and make sure 

 that it is safe. When all is done she brings the strix to within 

 a foot or two of the opening, runs to the nest to take a final 

 look, and then, going backward herself, pulls it inside. In two 

 instances we saw the fidgety little creature go through a most 

 comical performance, which again recalls the Sphex of Fabre. 

 Leaving her treasure on the ground she ran to the nest and 

 kicked out a little more earth; hastening back she dragged it an 

 inch nearer; then away she went to the nest again for more 

 digging, and so on, dropping her spider half a dozen times 

 before she at last brought it home. In two other cases in which 

 there was no such anxiety about the size of the nest, there 

 was, in reality, more reason for it. Indeed in one instance the 

 opening had to be enlarged before the spider could be taken in. 



The laying of the egg takes only two or three minutes and 

 then the hole is filled up. In this part of her work quinquc- 

 notatus shows a great deal of variation, sometimes coming out 

 of the hole and sweeping in the dirt with her first legs and 

 sometimes standing in the tunnel while she draws the earth in 

 with her mandibles and then jams it down with the end of her 

 abdomen. The former plan was in vogue in the garden while 

 the latter was more common with the wasps on the island. 

 After the hole is filled the spot is covered with pellets of earth 

 and pebbles brought from a little distance, very much as is 

 done by Ammophila. 



When we found that quinqnenotatus was a very common 



