154 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



load that she was dragging. As she worked her way along she 

 made frequent pauses, stopping for two or three minutes at a 

 time in some little hollow, or under leaves or weeds. She spent 

 a good deal of time, during these pauses, in cleaning herself, 

 and a good deal of time also in doing something to the spider 

 which we could not understand. She seemed to be biting the 

 legs, near the body, beginning with an anterior leg on one side 

 and working backward and then repeating the operation on the 

 other side. She went through this squeezing process again and 

 again, and to us it looked as though she might be trying to 

 force back the juices from the legs into the body preparatory 

 to cutting them off, but after a time she would seize her prey 

 and start on again. She had made her way along in this fashion 

 for some ten feet, when a second wasp appeared and alighted on 

 a weed near by. This interloper was a trifle smaller than the 

 other, and from her actions was evidently greatly interested in 

 the paralyzed spider. When the Pompilus stopped for a mo- 

 ment the other moved from stem to stem in a stealthy manner 

 just as a cat stalks a bird. The rightful owner of the prey was 

 disturbed and dashed at the invader, driving her away again 

 and again, but she flew only a short distance and was soon back, 

 always creeping nearer and nearer to the spider. We, too, were 

 watching with closest attention, but our desire was to see the 

 speedy home-coming of Pompilus and to learn whether she cut 

 off the legs of her victim, and so, interesting as was the contest 

 between the wasp and the wasp-inquiline, we decided to interfere 

 and remove the intruder. This was very easily accomplished 

 since the little insect was so intent upon getting near to the 

 spider that she was oblivious to our presence and allowed us to 

 place a bottle over her as she stood eagerly looking for a chance 

 to advance. Her removal gave great relief to the other wasp 

 as was manifested by an entire change of manner. Before, she 

 had been constantly on the lookout, moving only with the 

 greatest circumspection, but now she relaxed her vigilance. 

 With the Ceropales in our vial we, too, felt relieved, and now 

 the path of discovery seemed clear before us, but scarcely had 



