146 NEST OF MASON WASP. [PART II. 
some difficulty, but he at length succeeded in 
effecting his object. The next day the same man- 
ceuvre was repeated and another caterpillar gra- 
dually worked into the hole. As I happened to 
be leaving the neighbourhood on the following 
day, and was curious to ascertain how these pri- 
soners had been stowed away, I carefully stripped 
off the skirting adjoining the hole, when the 
secrets of the prison-house were at once revealed. 
The hole communicated with the bottom of a per- 
pendicular opening in the wood-work some three 
inches in length. From the top of this was sus- 
pended by a slender filament an egg, with and 
below which was immured a caterpillar still alive, 
but apparently in a semi-torpid state. These were 
secured by a flooring of cement, from which was 
suspended another egg, having for company ano- 
ther living caterpillar. Then came another floor- 
ing—then another egg and caterpillar—then ano- 
ther flooring, and so on; four cells having been 
thus completed one above another, each containing 
its egg, and the caterpillar destined to become 
food for the young wasp when hatched. The 
caterpillars were all in the same state of semi- 
torpidity, these insects having, in common with 
others, as the Sphea and Pompilus, the marvellous 
