102 
dust just outside the aperture indicated that Pseudagenia had en- 
larged the burrow in this old honeycombed log. Upon exca- 
vating I found that the short tunnel contained flirée cells, each 
supplied with an immobilized spider. One of these had a wasp 
egg on it and another a third-grown larva. The spiders appeared 
to be ground forms; one was accidentally destroyed, while of 
the other two, the first had only the last pair of legs snipped off, 
while the second had all four pairs severed. 
Pseudagenia macromeroides \Villiams. 
Length 11 mm.; grey-black. 
This ordinary-looking little wasp was not found to be common. 
From what few observations I have made on this species, I con- 
clude that the larger cell groups indicate a semi-social habit ; 
25 or more amassed cells must exceed the labors of one w asp. The 
cells, which are made entirely of mud, are placed in groups in 
sheltered places, as within a bamboo node which has been partly 
hacked open. They are much smaller 
and more crudely made than those of 
the big Macromeris violacea, but re- 
semble them in general form, (Fig. 49). 
In a rather far-gone 16-cell nest | 
found an old crippled female and a 
male; other nests (cell groups) were 
deserted or occupied by ants. One cell 
contained a typical Pseudagenia pupa. 
A Pseudagenia, which I never cap- 
tured for identification, was common . 
nesting in the bamboo wall-supports of Fig. 49. Cells of Pseuda- 
nipa ROTOR Several times have I seen ae mac eS 
About natural size. 
this wasp, in my room, carrying her de- 
legged spider beneath her and enter with it through the cut made 
for. slats, into the node itself. Evidently this insect makes use of 
the mud from the cells of the house Sceliphron (S. deformis) to 
fashion her own cells. Water for moistening the clay was 
handily situated on my washstand, where some had been spilled 
on the oil-cloth. 
A good-sized white and black cryptid wasp hung around the 
architect’s doorway, but I drove her away before any damage was 
done. The household wasps find but little shelter in houses 
except from the inclemencies of the weather. Ichneumonid and 


* Nipa fruticans Wurmb. is a native palm in tidewater lands, and whose leaves 
furnish ‘‘shingles’’ for bamboo frame houses and huts. 
