THE SPIDER RAVISHERS. 



victim, measured it with her eye, without touching it, drew her 

 conclusions, and at once returned to the nest and began to make 

 it larger. We have several times seen wasps enlarge their holes 

 when a trial had demonstrated that the spider would not go in, 

 but this seemed a remarkably intelligent use of the comparative 

 faculty. Her method of work was peculiar. Standing in the 

 tunnel with her head down and her abdomen curved under, she 

 bit the earth loose with her mandibles and pushed it under her 

 body and beyond the tip of the abdomen. When a little had 

 accumulated she backed out, holding it in this way. 



While she was thus employed the spider was attacked by a 

 very tiny red ant, that could not by any possibility have stirred 

 it. When the wasp caught sight of this insignificant marauder 

 she fell into a fit of wild fury and bending her abdomen under, 

 seized the ant again and again in her mandibles, and flung it 

 backward against the tip of her sting. The little creature finally 

 escaped, seeming none the worse for the rough handling to which 

 it had been subjected, while the wasp, still trembling with ex- 

 citement, grasped her spider and rushed off to a distance of 

 several feet, carrying it up on a weed and depositing it there. 

 The labor of excavation was then resumed and after a half 

 hour's work, was completed to her satisfaction. Coming up 

 head first she flattened herself out on the ground, and sprawling 

 thus, dragged herself all around it. The spider was now brought 

 to the nest, being left once on the way while she ran in and out 

 again, and was taken in after a new and original fashion. Back- 

 ing in herself she seized it by the tip of the abdomen and 

 dragged it down without any trouble, since the legs were gently 

 pushed up over the head and made no resistance. 



In two minutes she emerged from the opening, and standing 

 on the four posterior legs, with her abdomen hanging down 

 into the hole, scratched the earth backward with the front legs 

 and mandibles. As it fell in she pushed it down with the ab- 

 domen, and as the hole filled she raised herself higher and 

 higher on her legs, still using the tip of the abdomen to work 

 the material into place. 



