99 
with the mud she turns her attention to a tree gum, which she 
works over in her mouthparts and spreads on precisely as she 
did the mud. Then, without intermission, she brings in another 
final coating or, rather, patching material—a pale grey lichen— 
which she works up in her mouth into a sort of viscid paste, 
also applied like the mud and varnish, but the nest is blotched 
rather than completely covered: with it. We now have as a 
completed nest, an object which might well pass for an ex- 
crescence or other irregularity in the bark to which it is fastened. 
outer side of the last cell, is added. When Pseudagenia is through 


Fig.. 46. A delegged 
spider on whose ab- 
domen a half-grown 

larva of P. nyemi Fig. 47. Three-cell nest of 
tawa is feeding. En- P. nyemitawa, showing 
larged. doors by which wasp has 
left cell. Natural size. 
When on thin twigs, however, it is somewhat disproportionate to 
be regarded in the light of concealed coloration, particularly when 
it is plastered on to a thin yellow bamboo twig. 
The wasp’s egg is over 2 mm. long; the grub (Fig. 46) seems 
to be of the usual Pseudagenia type and spins a rather thin and 
pallid cocoon, the head end of which points upwards. In break- 
ing its way out of the cell the young wasp attacks the upper end, 
which it bites in circular fashion, so that when the resulting disc 
is forced out, it usually. stands ajar like a door, the gummy cell 
covering serving as a hinge. (Fig. 47.) 
In examining the cells of this species I came across one con- 
taining a darker brown thicker cocoon, which finally disclosed a 
reddish Xanthampulex, a parasitic pompilid, which doubtless laid 
her eggs on the Pseudagenia’s spider in the field. The nest 1s also 
parasitized by an ichneumonid, several of which I reared. 
