THE PELOP^US EISTULARIS. 373 



can be conceived. Like many other solitary hymenoptera, this 

 Pelopseus stores her nest with spiders, and any one would sup- 

 pose that she would choose the softest and the plumpest kinds for 

 her young. It is found, however, that she acts precisely in the 

 opposite manner. 



In tropical America there is a large group of spiders allied to 

 the common garden spider, but of the most extraordinary shapes 

 and colors. They all possess a hard, shelly covering, polished and 

 shining like that of many beetles, and glittering with bright and 

 radiant hues — blue, crimson, green, and purple being the colors 

 with which they are ordinarily decorated. Their forms are, how- 

 ever, even more remarkable than their colors. Their hard and 

 shelly covering is not uniform and smooth, but shoots out into 

 the most extraordinary projections, giving to the creatures a wild 

 and fantastic grotesqueness of aspect that surpasses even the 

 weird imaginings of Breughel, Cranagh, Callot, and other masters 

 of diablerie in art. 



One genus has the abdomen formed in a drum shape, the sides 

 and extremity being covered with short, sharp, and stout spines. 

 Another has the abdomen modified into a ball-like shape, from 

 which radiate sharp spikes, like those of the well-known "cal- 

 throp ;" while in another genus certain enormous projections issue 

 from the abdomen, two being so large that in volume they exceed 

 the whole of the abdomen and body. In one species they are 

 thick, solid, and palmated, like the horns of the elk ; in another 

 they are slender, and curved like the horns of a bull ; and there 

 are other species quite as bizarre in form. It is from these crea- 

 tures, more especially from the firi^t-mentioned, that the Pelopaeus 

 selects her victims, and it is evident that the jaws of the young 

 Pelopeeus must be exceedingly strong to be enabled to pierce 

 their hard and well-armed bodies. Like the previously-mention- 

 ed insect, the Pelopseus makes a loud and cheerful buzzing while 

 engaged in her work of building. 



Me. Bates, who has described these two insects, has likewise 

 mentioned a builder insect of the same order, called Meliponafas- 

 ciculata. The genus to which this insect belongs is a very large 

 one, containing some forty -five species, some of which are very 

 common in woods, and being extremely small, measuring only 

 the twelfth of an inch in length, they are very annoying to the 

 traveler, getting into his nostrils, and worrying him in various 



