460 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louts 
other nest. She came back and saw the opening, poked 
her head into it inquiringly and proceeded to plaster it 
up. For the third time I deftly broke into the cell, but 
she seemed to be inclined to repair it as long as I would 
continue to damage it. One wonders if, at any other 
stage of the work than precisely this, she would have 
been so inclined. 
Exp. XVII. A wasp had packed her cell nicely and 
already sealed it with two layers of clay. I carefully 
removed the covering and a part of the spiders. The 
wasp returned with the next load of mud, hesitated only 
a little and spread it in its proper place and was off 
again. Again I opened it and this time inserted four 
foreign spiders. In due time the mother returned, 
again plastered the opening as if nothing had happened 
and departed. Bent upon commanding her attention, I 
broke the seal for the third time and placed a larva of 
Sceliphron in the doorway, half protruding, so she could 
not seal the compartment without moving it. But by the 
time she arrived with her pellet, this larva had worked 
itself out of the cell, so she spread the mud as usual 
over the aperture. When she had again gone [ tried 
another very large larva in the same way. The mother 
wasp returned, made no attempt to remove the larva, 
in fact displayed no concern for its presence, but spread 
the mud around it as it lay half protruding from the 
cell, often severely jarring it as she worked, plastering 
her mud to the sides of the larva as though it were 4 
part of her wall, and thus again in this silly fashion seal- 
ing her cell. 
Exp. XVIII. To a Sceliphron cell containing a few 
spiders I added five from another nest. The wasp re- 
turned carrying another spider which she crammed into 
the cell, while with her head she condensed the whole 
