CLASS I. INSECTA: ORDER 3. HYMENOPTERA. 



565 



where they lay their eggs. Most of the other hymenoptera -which we have noticed, feed themselves 

 and their young on honey; these are of a more predaceous nature. They provide a supply of 

 food for the larva?, consisting of spiders and other insects which they kill and paralyze with their 

 stings. Gosse gives us the following curious account of them : 



" We once witnessed with great interest the efforts of one of these Burrowers, Pompilus viatica^ 

 to immure a heavy spider. A hole, about as large as a quill, was made in a dusty path through 

 a field, around which was the earth that had been dug out ; within a few inches lay a large, 



round-bellied, dusky spider, Lycosa^ motion- 

 less, which the Pompilus was trying to drag 

 to the hole ; it was up-hill, however, and 

 was no easy matter. She caught hold of one 

 of the thighs of the spider with her jaws, 

 and with her tail toward the hole began 

 to tug; but the dust continually gave way 

 under her feet, and she could not make much 

 progress. She would tug for a few seconds, 

 then let go, and run to the hole, descending 

 head foremost, but immediately coming out 

 as she went in, head downward ; once, how- 

 ever, she turned in the hole. Sometimes, 

 by sudden exertions, she succeeded in drag- 

 ging the spider a little way, and once, as 

 she was getting along finely, and had got 

 nearly half up the hill, the round spider sud- 

 denly rolled down, dragging the wasp com- 

 pletely over in a somerset. At length we 

 took pity on her, and while she was in the 

 hole, moved the spider to a more favorable position. On coming out, she went to the old spot, 

 but, finding no spider, seemed quite bewildered, wandering to and fro, and now and then tracing 

 the way to and from the hole ; soon, however, she found the spider again, and at length succeeded 

 in dragging him to the mouth of the hole. Previously to this, we had observed her dig with 

 the fore-feet for a few seconds at the mouth of the hole, as if conscious that it needed enlarging. 

 Having got the prey up to the mouth, she descended, tail foremost, and tried to draw it down, 

 grasping the thigh close to the thorax ; the spider was, however, too large to go in this way, and 

 so she instantly let go, and seized him by the extremity of the abdomen, where she had not 

 touched him before, and drew him down. Even thus, it was a tight squeeze, but at length he dis- 

 appeared within the hole, and, as the wasp did not appear for some time, we left the place. All 

 the time she was dragging him her wings were shut, but in constant motion, flirting up and 

 down. 



" A South-American genus, Pf/o;;a?z(5, allied to the preceding, is called the Dauber, from its 

 singular habit of placing its nest of mud against the walls and ceiling in the interior of the houses. 

 When finished, these nests look like handfuls of clay, which have been thrown up at random and 

 adhered ; but inwardly they contain very smooth and regular cells, each containing a grub and 

 a dozen or more of spiders. The construction of these nests, which we have observed with great 

 minuteness, is performed by the Dauber bringing little pellets of clay in her mouth, about as large 

 as peas, one after another, which she spreads and arranges with her jaws ; previously to closing 

 them up, she lays an egg in the bottom of each, and places over it, as we have said, from twelve to 

 eighteen spiders, not killed but rendered helpless. The grub spends its life in this dark and 

 solitary prison, and when full grown, having eaten the abdomens of all or nearly all the spiders, 

 forms an oval cocoon of a brittle shelly substance, and goes into pupa; the perfect fly wlien 

 evolved gnaws its way through the mud walls with its strong jaws, and for the first time beholds 

 the light." 



TUE DAUBER. 



