85 
contained cocoons. As we shall see later, one is often able to 
tell whether Macromeris is utilizing a cell for the first or for the 
second time or more. I kept these cells in a receptacle, and all 
the stored cells save one whose contents I had considerably dis- 
turbed came through successfully. In my brief and limited ex- 
perience with both Macromeris and Paragenia I have found no 
parasitism in the nests, whereas the cells of the several Pseuda- 
genia which I have studied produced a large percentage of ichneu- 
monid parasites (Cryptinae). Dutt (1912) had similar experi- 
ences with Indian Pseudagenia. This may be partly explained 
by the habits of Macromeris and Paragenia, which, being semi- 
social, are thus better able to guard their nests, while Pseuda- 
genia, quite solitary as a rule, cannot protect their cells and hunt 
for spiders at the same time, and, furthermore, they desert their 
completed nests to form others elsewhere. But one might, in 
consequence, expect to find the semi-social genera the more nu- 
merous in individuals, though this does not seem to be the case. 
The Macromeris whose nest I had destroyed stayed in the tree 
hollow for some time; they appeared much concerned as they 
walked about the nesting site, tapping here and there with the 
antennae.* 
On November 28, I discovered that a hollow in a large branch 
of this same Cordia tree, an isolated specimen near the edge of a 
banana plantation, harbored another Macromeris nest. One of 
these wasps dragging a spider on the roadside was a conspicuous 
object. She hailed from the banana plantation across the road, 
which, of course, she was unable to bridge through the medium 
of trees, heavily burdened as she was. There was no doubt, how- 
ever, that she was very anxious to climb up anything that of- 
fered, in order that she might make a sailing flight towards 
home, for, utterly unmindful of me, she immediately crawled up 
my bamboo net handle which I presented to her, then along my 
hand and arm, and had I not diverted her course, again by inter- 
posing the bamboo stick, she certainly would have scaled my 
person to its highest point. From the end of this stick she para- 
chuted heavily to the tree. Here I noted that she carried the 
spider close beneth her body, grasping it with her mandibles by 
the underside and posterior end of the abdomen, near or at the 
paired papillae-like processes there. All but three of the spider’s 
walking legs had been bitten off close to the body. Macromeris, 
with raised wings, traveling as hastily as possible, climbed up 
and sailed from one limb to another. I soon saw that she did 
not belong to the household of which I first spoke, for there she 
* Hollow occupied again by August, 1917. 
