434 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 
ease of this exceptional nest, the male was constantly in 
attendance, remaining in the latest tube, and always 
made a terrific buzzing commotion when a straw was in- 
serted. This mother may have been erratic, or she may 
have been merely keeping her fingers busy while waiting 
for the maturation of her ova. 
The quantity of provender consumed by the young of 
these various wasps is always a point of interest. We 
take it for granted that the mother knows and provides 
just the right amount of food to bring her young to 
maturity, but we have not investigated the frequency 
of her fallibility. One larva of T. politum had com- 
pletely exhausted the supply of spiders which had been 
provided for it, but had not yet made its cocoon. This 
gave an opportunity to see if a larva would eat more 
than the usual amount of food provided for it. A large 
spider was removed from another nest and placed with 
this larva. Within six hours this had been devoured. 
Then two other large spiders were placed in the cell, and 
when the examination was made two days later it was 
found that the larva had devoured one whole spider and 
half of the other and was now enclosed in its cocoon. 
This simple experiment shows that this larva reached 
the limit of its capacity at two and one-half additional 
spiders. This over-feeding was not injurious to the in- 
sect, because later it transformed into a normal adult. 
Another individual greedily devoured two and one-fourth 
additional spiders, and pupated leaving the remainder 
of the last one in its cell. It also emerged a healthy 
adult. David Sharp quotes Peckholt who says, in speak- 
ing of this species: ‘‘ . . . however great may be the 
number of insects placed by the mother wasp in the cell, 
they are all consumed by the larva, none ever being found 
in the cells after the perfect insects escape therefrom.”’ 
