84 HOME STUDIES IN NATURE. 



tell which feet she uses the most. She seems to dig 

 with her fore-feet, and to rake the earth in backward 

 with her hind -feet. Soon the hole is full; and now 

 she makes a battering-ram of herself by repeatedly 

 striking her body on the ground, as if to pound the 

 earth down. This done, she rakes the ground all over 

 and around the place to make it level, and then seizes 

 a small pebble in her mandibles and lays it over 

 the spot, and scatters other pebbles all around it, so 

 that it looks noways different from the surrounding 

 ground. 



Tie wasp is gone, and now like a thief I venture to 

 dig up the treasure. I find the spider about four inches 

 below the surface, with an egg sticking in the body 

 which the wasp has placed there. The egg hatches 

 into a legless white grub, which at once begins to feed 

 upon the spider. 



Some strange knowledge more than we possess en- 

 ables the mother wasp to so prepare the spider that the 

 meat will keep fresh and sweet from four to six weeks, 

 or until the helpless baby wasp is full-grown and passes 

 into the chrysalis stage. It remains a chrysalis until 

 the following summer, when a full-fledged, bright -col- 

 ored wasp emerges. In this state it does not feed upon 

 spiders, but upon nectar and honey. 



The wasps continue their raids for two or« three 

 weeks, only the spiders with closed doors escaping. 

 Sometimes one has kept herself shut up for two weeks, 

 and then timidly opens her door and looks out; but 



