46 Next to the Ground 



ever satisfied with a nest of one gallery. As 

 soon as the first was an inch long a second was 

 begun, then a third, a fourth — a seventh even 

 was not at all uncommon. As a gallery 

 lengthened it was walled across into cells a 

 little more than an inch deep. Before a cell 

 was finally sealed, it was crammed full of 

 spiders or caterpillars, not killed but deftly 

 stung into paralysis. It was not a complete 

 paralysis. After the sting, a spider's legs 

 would quiver, a caterpillar move feebly. But 

 the creatures could not crawl. If the daub- 

 ers dropped them, they lay where they fell. 

 Sometimes the daubers flew down, and made 

 a feint of picking up their lost prey, but more 

 generally they flew off after fresh game. 



Joe decided that the daubers purposely let 

 fall some of their captives. He knew the 

 spiders and caterpillars were meant to feed 

 the young daubers that would hatch out in 

 the cells. Dauber-grubs fed by sucking, and 

 dead insects would be too dry for that, long 

 before the grubs hatched out. He had knocked 

 down dauber nests in mid-winter, and found 

 the spiders in them still soft and plump, even 

 faintly alive. So it was reasonable to con- 

 clude that the castaways were castaways be- 

 cause they had been stung so they would die 

 — either too deeply, or in the wrong place. 



Speculation upon the point sometimes sent 



