154 
of slender build, lacking the terminal pair of prolegs, and with a 
pair of long slender processes arising from the end of the body; 
these I determined as the larvae of Drepanulidae or sickle- 
winged moths. The prey is partially paralyzed, and the wasp 
presents rather a grotesque appearance as she passes the cater- 
pillar through the small aperture of her cell and through which 
it may squeeze only under considerable pressure. The cater- 
pillar is inserted head first, Eumenes seizing it by the neck with 
her mandibles, and moving her jaws, as a whole, back and forth 
by the up and down movement of her head, with the aid of her 
forelegs, levers the victim inside. Several caterpillars are stuffed 
into each cell and the latter then sealed up. By this latter opera- 
tion the cell loses some of its symmetry, for she daubs mud on the 
aperture and also bites off the rim of the mouth and moistens 
and plasters the pieces on again so that the affair much resem- 
bles a lump of mud. Sometimes she is overtaken by darkness 
when she has her cell but half stored; here she is not as provi- 
dent as Sceliphron maderospatanum, who always temporarily seals 
up a partly-provisioned cell at the close of day. Next morning 
Eumenes carefully studies the cell with her antennae, finishes 
the Ae and seals it up. She never sleeps in the vicinity of 
the nest. 
Eumenes builds in a variety of situations. One wasp consid- 
ered the upper surface of a shelf beneath a small table a good 
nesting site, but this lowly position brought her close to the 
bamboo floor, where she was greatly annoyed by the household 
kitten, which really limited the edifice to but three cells. 
December 22, 1916. A wasp inspected my room for a nesting 
place. At last she selected a bamboo upright, and alighting 
thereon, scrutinized a space on it. Finally she flew off and then 
approached to an inch or so of the selected place, viewing it on 
the wing, from different angles, retreating and then re e-approach- 
ing; this was clearly a locality study, for she disappeared out of 
the window and returned presently with mud which she pasted 
on the chosen spot. 
In the forest her nests are often plastered against tree trunks, 
in a position likely to escape moisture; or they may be attached 
to boulders and banks of conglomerate soil—away from rain. In 
such places the nests are frec juently made with one or two covers 
of mud, separated from each other and from the cell-mass by a 
considerable air space; these covers are quite fragile and by no 
means waterproof, and perfect ones are not readily found. They 
may keep parasites from getting into the cells when the nest is 
complete, but parasites probably do not usually wait for the 
completion of their hosts’ cells. I found several cryptid ichneu- 

