212 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



find their way about. If they were furnished with an innate 

 sense of direction they would not need to make a study of the 

 locality of the nest in order to find the way back, but if they 

 were without this sense it would be only common prudence to 

 take a good account of their bearings before going far afield. 

 The minute and careful study of such small matters may not 

 be so pleasant as philosophising about them but it is sometimes 

 more profitable, and we may truthfully say that we have found 

 the investigation of these details of more interest than the cor- 

 responding affairs in human life. 



The sight of a bee or a wasp returning to its home, without 

 hesitation or uncertainty, from some far distant spot is, indeed, 

 marvellous. "When we saw our first Ammophila perform this 

 feat? we were filled with wonder. How was it possible for her 

 to hunt for hours, in all directions, far and wide, and then re- 

 turn in a direct line to a nest which had been so carefully cov- 

 ered over that every trace of its existence was obliterated? 

 Looked at in this way it is indeed a mysterious process, best ac- 

 counted for by giving her a sixth or a seventh sense a sense of 

 direction. 



This, however, is not quite fair to her ladyship's intelligence, 

 as a better acquaintance with her would prove. In reading 

 much of the popular natural history of the day one might sup- 

 pose that the insects seen flying about on a summer's day were 

 a part of some great throng which is ever moving onward, those 

 that are here today being replaced by a new set on the morrow. 

 Except during certain seasons the exact opposite of this is true. 

 The flying things about us abide in the same locality and are 

 the inhabitants of a fairly restricted area. The garden in which 

 we worked was, to a large extent, the home of a limited number 

 of certain species of wasps that had resided there from birth or 

 having found the place accidentally, had settled there perma- 

 nently. To make this matter clear let us suppose the case of 

 an individual of A. urnaria. In June she spent her time in 

 sipping nectar from the onion flowers or from the sorrel that 

 grew on the border of the garden. In July came the days of 



