SPIDERS AND WASPS. 91 



tinues this until she has laid the foundation of a five- 

 sided wall. She now goes down to the bottom of her 

 tube and brings up a pellet of earth, which she places 

 on top of the sticks; she goes all around, making a 

 circle of these pellets, which she flattens by pressing her 

 body against them, and arranges them in such a man- 

 ner as to cover the sticks on the inside, making the 

 walls perfectly round and silk-lined. Now she is ready 

 for more sticks, which she continues to alternate with 

 the pellets until the tower has reached the height of 

 two and a half inches above her burrow. I occasionally 

 gave her bits of green moss an inch or two in length, 

 which she would use by fastening them to a stick with 

 web; this makes the wall on the outside fringed with 

 moss. 



If she is not in a mood for building, and I offer her 

 a stick, she takes it in her mandibles, and with her fore- 

 feet gives it a quick blow, often sending it with force 

 enough to hit the jar ; and when she is digging and 

 bringing up pellets of earth which she does not wish 

 to use in her tower, she throws them from the top 

 of the walls with sufficient force to make them land 

 a foot or more from the burrow, if it were not for the 

 intervention of the glass. This accounted for the fact 

 that I could never find any fresh earth near the bur- 

 rows of these spiders. 



She is also a very neat house-keeper ; she leaves no 

 debris in the cellar under her tower ; the remains of all 

 insects are thrown from the top in the same manner 



