The Hunting Wasps 



bored, the Ammophila invariably visits the 

 little heap of stones placed in reserve during 

 the excavating, with the object of choosing 

 a bit to suit her. If there is nothing that 

 satisfies her needs, she explores the neigh- 

 bourhood and soon discovers what she wants, 

 a small flat stone slightly larger in diameter 

 than the mouth of her hole. She carries off 

 this slab in her mandibles and lays it, as a 

 temporary door, over the opening of the 

 burrow. To-morrow, when the weather is 

 once more hot and the sun bathes the slopes 

 and encourages hunting, the Wasp will know 

 quite well how to find her home, rendered 

 inviolable by the massive door; she will come 

 back with a paralysed caterpillar, grasped by 

 the skin of its neck and dragged between its 

 captor's legs; she will lift the slab, which 

 nothing distinguishes from other little stones 

 around and which she alone is able to iden- 

 tify; she will let down the game to the bot- 

 tom of the well, lay her egg and close the 

 house for good by sweeping into the perpen- 

 dicular shaft all the rubbish which she has 

 kept in the vicinity. 



Time after time, the Sandy Ammophila 

 and the Silvery Ammophila have shown me 

 this temporary closing of the hole when the 

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