Insects. 585 



August 6. — 1 pulled down the nest of the yellow-footed dauber, to 

 which other cells had been added in succession after the last record. 

 On examining them now, I find three perfected insects have made 

 their exit, one has died in making its way out, two are in pupa, one 

 black and near perfection, the other white and nearly turned, and two 

 are in larva, one large, the other very small, making eight originally 

 in the nest. Many of the spiders remained uneaten, most of them 

 were handsomely studded with scarlet spots on a black ground. It 

 was in looking at these pupa;, that I first was aware how a difficulty 

 of no ordinary magnitude is got over. How do insects, whose abdo- 

 men is peduncled, draw it out of the pupa-skin, seeing the peduncle 

 is so slender ? I should have guessed that the skin would be rap- 

 tured, but it is not so. These daubers have a very long and slender 

 peduncle, but the skin of the pupa, close in every other part, is as 

 wide around the peduncle as around the abdomen, stretching across 

 from the thorax to the summit of the abdomen, like a loose garment. 

 What a beautiful example of Divine foresight in creation ! 



July 14. — In a corner of a closet stood a little phial, about an inch 

 and a half high, which had held ink, but it had dried up. Looking 

 at it this morning, I was surprised to find it closed with a white dry 

 substance like pipeclay; and on breaking this was still more surprised 

 to find the clew of the mystery. It held no less than eighteen spi- 

 ders, of a few of which, however, the abdomen was wanting. The 

 case was clear. A dauber, to save herself the labour of building a 

 cell, had found and made use of this substitute : a very curious in- 

 stance of insect laziness. 



July 21. — I perceive that the dauber has returned to the phial, and 

 having, no doubt, observed that it had been handled, has taken out 

 every one of the spiders, which she has strewn around, and having 

 filled the bottle with newly caught spiders, has again sealed it up with 

 mud. I think we may infer from this, that the parent exercises a mea- 

 sure of watchful guardianship over her young, sealed as they are from 

 her sight and direct interference. 



Aug. 18. — About this time the other species of Pelopaeus began to 

 be busy fabricating their more artful thimble-shaped nests. It is dif- 

 ficult to convey by words an idea of their mode of working; their ge- 

 neral proceedings were as before, as respects bringing the mud &c. 

 The commencement of a cell was by laying down the load, and work- 

 ing it into an oval ridge, one extremity of which was to be the apex 

 ii Q 



