28 Xo/i's 0/1 (I Soli/diy W'lisp. 



over the caterpillar to rest, and perhaps to sting- it, as well as to 

 perform its own toilet. After a little while it took up the cater- 

 pillar and flew away with it. On another occasion I saw an 

 Odynerus either enter or come out of what appeared to be a nail- 

 hole in the mortar between two bricks ; after it had left I 

 extracted several of these green caterpillars — it was evident 

 that a hole, already formed, was to be used, instead of buildinij 

 an entire nest. In igoi I went to examine a nest made by 

 some insect near the front door of a neighbour ; it had not 

 been discovered until completed, and its entrance closed. It 

 was situated in an angle of the brickwork, at the bottom of a 

 column, as shewn in the photograph. In the spring of 1902 I 

 was allowed to fix a small net of muslin over the cell, and fasten 

 it in such a manner as to detain any insect that might emerge 

 from the cell ; in this way I was enabled to obtain more than 

 one specimen of wasp, and to make out the species, which I 

 decided to be Odynerus parietiim Linn.* During the spring of 

 1902 another nest was built, two bricks above the first one, but 

 possibly the insect builder came to grief from some accident, as 

 the nest was never sealed up. It is very curious that, although 

 people were very frequently passing in and out every day, the 

 wasp whilst at work was not observed by anj'body. On the 

 25th July igo2, I took the photograph which shows the two 

 nests, the unsealed opening of the upper one is very plainly to 

 be seen, and it will be observed the wasp made several attempts 

 to make the upper nest, but was only satisfied of its security 

 when it commenced on the mortar between the bricks. Panzer, 

 in his ' Fauna Germanica ' gives a good coloured figure of this 

 Wasp. Donovan also in his 'British Insects,' Vol. xiv., p. 

 72, Plate 495, figures two other species. In 1868 Dr. Ormorod, 

 the father of the well-known Entomoligist, Miss Ormerod, 

 published a popular History of British Social Wasps, beautifully 

 illustrated. I have not however heard of any popular work on 

 British Solitary Wasps. In the October 'Naturalist,' p. 292, 

 appears a short notice of (American) ' Wasps Social and 

 .Solitary,' by G. W. and E. G. Peckham, which, thanks to Mr. 

 Sheppard, I now possess, and which should be read by all 

 interested in Wasps. In it are mentioned six or seven species 

 of Odynerus, but O. fxirie/uni, which differ in its methods of 

 nest building, is not dt'scribrd. 



* We have sevoral species of Odynerus in Great Britain : F. Smith, in 

 lii.s Catalog'ue of tlie British Museum, publislud in 1S58, describes 12 species, 

 and Saunders in liis Synopsis of 1S82 mciuions 13, and possibly more have 

 been recorded since that time. Naturalist 



