6G CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



way into the main shaft, and come out into daylight a 

 full-fledged Andrena bee. The deepest chambers are 

 provisioned last. 



The mother bee can dig through the hardest- 

 packed earth and gravel to make her tunnel. She 

 does all the work herself. The fore legs of the male 

 bee are not adapted for digging, nor his hind legs for 

 carrying pollen. 



The wasps are famous diggers, but instead of stor- 

 ing up honey or pollen for the use of their little ones, 

 they capture living insects, which they have the power 

 of paralyzing with their stings, and which they de- 

 posit with their eggs in their burrows. The effect of. 

 the sting is very wonderful. Spiders stored away 

 with wasp's eggs, which have failed to hatch, have 

 been found after several years had past in the same 

 condition as when first deposited. 



It may seem very cruel to condemn living crea- 

 tures to such a sort of life in death to fall a prey at 

 last to hungry grubs, but the insects, it is safe to say, 

 are entirely unconscious and insensible to pain. 



Our very large wasp in Texas* captures the gre-,t 

 hairy ground spider found there,! though the spider 

 has been known to catch the wasp. This wasp makes 

 a burrow five inches deep for every egg it lays, and 

 one spider is stored in each burrow. 



Every species of wasp has its own particular species 



* Pompilius formosus. 



•f Mygale Mutzii. Latin and Greek, a field mouse : a man's 

 name. 



