210 BOMBAY DUCKS 
the insect on the ground while they dig; one species 
walking backwards and dragging its spider after it, and 
when the spider is so small that it carries it in its 
mandible, it still walks backwards as if dragging it, 
when it would be much easier to walk forward. A 
curious little people, leading their solitary lives and 
greatly differentiated by their solitude, hardly any two 
alike, one nervous and excitable, another calm and un- 
hurried; one careless in her work, another neat and 
thorough; this one suspicious, that one confiding; 
ammophila using a pebble to pack down the earth in 
her burrow, while another species uses the end of her 
abdomen—verily a queer little people, with a lot of 
wild nature about them, and a lot of human nature too.” 
A multitude of solitary wasps are found in Madras, 
many of which invade our houses and build their nests 
inside them. One of these, one of the Eumenida, 
recently forced herself upon my notice, She is known 
to entomologists as Rhynchium brunneum. She has no 
popular name. I use the pronoun “she” advisedly, 
for among wasps the male is an unimportant creature. 
He is smaller than the female, and takes no part in the 
construction or the provisioning of the nest. 
The female of this particular wasp is about three- 
quarters of an inch long, her waist is short and thick, 
her body is brownish red in colour, marked posteriorly 
by three black bands which run across the body. Her 
glassy wings are of a brownish-yellow hue. Thus her 
garments are neither very beautiful nor very showy. 
She is clad in quiet, businesslike clothes which are 
quite in keeping with her calm, industrious habits. 
