TWO MOTHER MASONS 103 



fibrous lining was a part of the original construction. 

 Perhaps the wasp covers the inner walls with a saliva 

 that in drying splits into silklike fibres. However, if 

 the Eumenes suspend the egg as Fabre declares, they 

 must have some means of spinning silk. 



When the nest is finished as described, the mother 

 mason turns hunter, and caterpillars are her quarry. 

 She stings them as she catches them, as did the Mud 

 Dauber the spiders ; however, the Jug Builder does not 

 seem to have so powerful a weapon, for the cater- 

 pillars are imperfectly paralyzed. They are still able 

 to wriggle in a quite disconcerting manner after she 

 has dumped them down through the opening into the 

 jug. After she has secured a sufiicient number of 

 these to sustain her young until it has reached matu- 

 rity she lays an egg and fastens it to the dome of the 

 nest ; this is, perhaps, the reason that the opening to the 

 jug is always a little at the side. After the egg is laid 

 she closes the opening by filling it with a cork of cement. 



The story of what goes on in the Eumenes' nest after 

 the mother has walled up the cell has been told with 

 great vivacity and most dramatically by the French 

 entomologist, J.-H. Fabre. He made little windows 

 in the sides of the jugs, and so was able to see what 

 had always before been shrouded in mystery and dark- 

 ness. He says : — 



