352 Mr. A. Murray on the History 



Lastly, it must pass into the pupa-state, and spin a cap or 

 lid to the cell, and the membranaceous, thin, silvery, shiny- 

 looking lining to the cell, all in the same way as the wasp- 

 pupa ; for the lids of the Bhiptjyhon-celh are identical with 

 those of the wasp-cells and undistinguishable from them. I 

 here assume, as I think is the general belief, that this lining 

 and lid are spun by the pupa, although it does not present 

 itself to my mind as absolutely free from difficulties. I 

 am not a hymenopterist ; that is, I do not make a specialty 

 of that branch of entomology ; I therefore may without loss 

 of credit indulge in wonder not allowed to the better-informed 

 specialist at some of the things which to my unsophisticated 

 mind appear amazing and puzzling, but which to him are 

 hackneyed and trite. The lid of these wasp-cells and the 

 manner of their formation is one of these things. The autho- 

 rities say the pupse spin them ; and that they are spun is de- 

 monstrable by examination of some of the less hard and com- 

 plete lids. You can see the threads stretching across and 

 interlacing each other in every direction. Moreover, plenty of 

 observers have seen them doing it, and watched their heads 

 going to and fro with the regular spinning motion, under a 

 commenced lid; so that there can be no doubt up to that point. 

 But we must go a step further. Can they do it with their tails? 

 Two of the wasp-pupee in the doubly employed cells were 

 outermost, and in both cases tail to the mouth of the cell, and 

 a black cap or deposit of its drojjpings lay just within the 

 lid. Miss Eleanor Ormerod observed the same thing ; but in 

 her case, although there may have been two pup^e in the cell 

 (and in my own mind, I have no doubt there were), she did not 

 observe it, but was struck only by the reversed wasp-pupa. At 

 that time we had not met with any cells containing two pupje, 

 and she may have overlooked a JRhijn])horus-'pvi])a below it ; 

 but she marked the cell, and I searched it subsequently without 

 finding any traces of double employ ; but it was some days 

 after before I looked, and by that time the pupa might have 

 decayed or shrunk, so as under my manipulation to have 

 become confounded with the debris at the bottom of the cell. 

 The cells containing these reversed wasp-pupai were in every 

 respect the same as the surrounding cells. The spun lid was 

 the same, and also the silvery lining and the strong base — no 

 back door or any means of feeding or getting in from behind. 

 Now I hold it to be impossible for the full-grown larva to turn in 

 its cell — that is, to reverse its position. It can turn and turn on 

 its side, turn about and wheel about on its pivot ; but turn sum- 

 mersaults it cannot. If the larva then spins the lid, it must 

 a])parcnt.ly be able to supply the silk or matter of tlie thread, 



