Field Studies of the Non-Social Wasps 427 
nest. I could stay no longer, and I never learned whether 
he proved true or false to his bride of twenty minutes. 
Subsequently I saw another nest, the home of a pair 
of T. albopilosum where the male remained on guard 
while the female went to and fro bringing in spiders and 
mud for wall-making. 
The Peckhams find that this species brings in spiders, 
usually of the Epeiridae, and that the specimens are often 
so heavy that ‘‘they are carried with difficulty,’’ and a 
pretty demonstration of the modifiability of instinct is 
seen by ‘‘the wasp alighting and dragging the spider into 
the hole instead of flying directly in as usual.’’ In one 
nest where five spiders were examined two hours after 
they had been stored two were dead and three alive; 
in another instance, out of seven spiders four were alive 
and three dead. In one unfinished cell which I examined, 
all six spiders were limp and motionless. Two were 
Epeira insularis [J. H. Emerton] and four were imma- 
ture Epeira sp. [J. H. Emerton]. This shows that very 
often the sting of the wasp is so severe or the spider so 
weak that they cannot withstand it. What effect the dead 
prey has upon the feeding larva is not known. 
The Peckhams find Trypozylon albopilosum and T. 
rubrocinctum, occupying the holes in one post of their 
cottage porch. In the clay bank I find T. albopilosum 
and 7. clavatum using the old burrows of the bees. 
According to the same authorities, a wasp can, by 
working hard, prepare a nest, store it with spiders and 
seal it up all in one day. In other cases they say the 
same operation requires three or four days. It takes 
her from ten to twenty minutes to catch and bring in a 
spider, but 7. albopilosum is often absent for a much 
longer time. Their interest in the nest seems to lag in 
