65 



iolding it venter upwards beneath her, clasping it about the 

 back of the neck or thorax with the end portion or tarsi of her 

 middle pair of legs so that the spines at the tip of the tibiae 

 are brought across the hopper's throat. Being held only by 

 the wasp's middle pair of legs the hopper hangs obliquely 

 under its carrier. 



I noticed several Nesomimesa burrows in the vertical bank 

 of a creek bed at the lower Wood Valley Station, altitude 

 1,850 feet. Above the rich soil was "a layer of "pahoehoe" 

 or layer lava which doubtless prevented excessive moisture 

 from seeping through to the burrows. The latter from one to 

 several feet above the ground in the bank, were sometimes 

 located by the grains of soil heaped up below a burrow. Sev- 

 eral wasps were seen examining the bank and occasionally 

 alighting on the soil for a few minutes ; but when a wasp was 

 engaged in storing her burrow she usually strove to locate 

 and enter it as quickly as possible. The nest-holes are cylin- 

 drical and enter the bank at a slight angle from the horizontal. 

 The main shaft is 6-8 inches long and sometimes ends quite 

 steeply, giving off here rather long branches, each teruiinating 

 in a spacious oval cell about 15 mm. long and 8.5 in greatest 



Fig. 2. Burrow and nest of Xesomimesa hawaiiensis. 



diameter. These cells which may number 18 to one nest are 

 horizontal or nearly so, and the passage to them plugged with 

 soil up to the main burrow^ (Fig. 2). This seems sometimes 

 to be done even when the cell in question is not yet completely 



