374 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



ways. Fortunately, they do not sting, but their bite is very sharp, 

 and if made on a sensitive surface like the lining membrane of 

 the nostril, can inflict very severe pain. 



The form of habitation is various, according to the species, but 

 they all use clay for that purpose, kneading it with their mandi- 

 bles, and then passing it to the hind legs, and pressing it into 

 the hair-fringed depression which is popularly called the basket. 

 Some species are accustomed to employ any casual crevice as a 

 nest, stuffing it up with clay, and leaving only a little orifice 

 through which they can pass. Others, again, make long tubes of 

 clay, with trumpet-shaped mouths; and it is a remarkable fact, 

 that a number of the bees are always at the entrance as sentinels, 

 just as is the case with the hive-bee when wasps are abroad. 



In the " Zoologist" for 1864, p. 582, is a very interesting de- 

 scription, by Mr. P. H. Gosse, of the proceedings of insects which 

 he appropriately calls the Dauber Wasps, and which belong to 

 the same genus as the Pelopseus mentioned above. One insect he 

 identifies as Pelopseus flavipes, and the other is probably Pelopce- 

 us spirifer. One of these insects is now before me, and a very 

 pretty creature it is. In shape it exactly resembles that which is 

 figured on page 372, but the colors are different. The general 

 hue is deep brown-black, very shining in the abdomen, and soft- 

 ened by thick down upon the thorax. It is, however, not a som- 

 bre insect, as the long footstalk of the abdomen is bright yellow, 

 and the limbs are banded with the same lively hue. I strongky 

 advise my readers to peruse this account, because it is full of de- 

 tail, and contains much useful information about the method of 

 working adopted by the insect, thus giving a clew to the proceed- 

 ings of other insects which build habitations of similar materi- 

 als. The length of the account is the reason why it can not be 

 transferred to these pages, and I must therefore give a short ab- 

 stract. 



Having seen many patches of a yellow mud on the walls and 

 rafters, some as large as the closed fist and others of comparative- 

 ly small dimensions, he asked some boys what they were, and 

 was told that they were the nests of the Dirt-daubers. Finding 

 that, as the weather became warm, the insects began to build, he 

 set to work and watched them carefully. First he tried their sa- 

 gacity by boring holes in their cells, in order to see whether the 

 insects would fill them up, and afterward by inserting foreign 



