412 Trans. Acad, Sci. of St. Louis 
way or that, before he condescends to come out and let 
her in. Sometimes he takes his time about even grant- 
ing this favor. 
On June 29, at 8 a. m., I was attracted to a jumble of 
life at the entrance to one of the nests. After some sec- 
onds I analyzed it; it was a mother T. clavatum working 
outrageously hard to push in a large spider that was 
wedged in the doorway; the spider seemed much too 
large for the burrow, and she was having a hard time 
indeed to get it in. She got no assistance from ‘‘hus- 
band, father, protector’’, but instead he insisted upon 
playfully riding on her back and eventually suceeded in 
mating. She did not chase him away, neither did she 
stop to pay him any heed, but regarded him with toler- 
ance that looked almost like indifference. She eventually 
succeeded in her difficult undertaking, and she did it by 
sheer perseverance and industry. Perseverance and in- 
dustry are the terms which especially apply to this 
mother, in contrast to the higher psychical behavior of 
two of the Pompilid wasps which, when confronted with 
the identical problem of getting their prey into a burrow 
too small for it, enlarged the burrow. However, since 
this species does not instinctively dig, one could hardly 
expect it to modify its instinct in time of trouble. And 
yet, was there not in her action a glimmer of intelligence, 
a little variation from her usual mode of action, brought 
about by an attempt to overcome a new difficulty by sum- 
moning as resources all of the methods she practises in 
other situations? Her method, we should explain, was 
to push, pound and butt the spider into the hole with her 
head, instead of flying in with it as she normally does. 
Of course the ‘‘instinct-monger’’ will immediately say 
that it is her custom to pack the spiders close together 
in the cell by this same method, so she is already famil- 
