142 liiilU'l'ni Wisconsin Xatina] Hisforij Society. [Vol. 5, No. 3. 
worker whose habits, as far as I saw them, it will be my pleasant 
task to describe below. Unfortunately part of almost every day 
was marred by a shower of rain, or the conditions of the sky was 
such as is designated part cloudy in our weather reports. 
The notes will be given just as they were entered in my field 
book at the time : 
Gorytes begins her nest by scratching at the chosen spot with 
her forefeet, occasionally helping with the mandibles when a 
pebble or particularly hard spot is met, until she has loosened a 
small pile of sand when she backs out and smooths this away to 
some distance. Pebbles are grasped by the mandibles and car- 
ried a short distance and there dropped. After the burrow has 
reached a depth greater than the length of the wasp, the sand 
accumulates behind her and is then pushed out with the abdomen 
at the same time assisting with the legs as she backs out. 
NEST NO. I. 
This nest was about one inch in depth when first seen at 
5 : 25 r. M. July 14th. Activities were continued until nearly six 
o'clock, wlien the opening was closed from within. At 6:40 the 
nest was still closed and remained closed until I left as darkness 
fell, so the presumption was that labor had ceased for the night. 
Tt rained steadily during the morning of July 15th, and the nest 
was not visited until 4:00 \\ m. It was still closed. The sand 
was blown away until the opening w^as free and the depth of the 
gallery tested with a grass stem. At 4 :3 130 the wasp returned, 
carrying a leaf hopper. Although wide open, she instinctively 
began scratching at the entrance of the nest as if to clear it and 
then entered head foremost, carrying her prey. She came out 
at 4 : 4 : 20, closing the hole as she came, using mandibles and feet 
in the operation. She then turned around to examine the work 
but a Formica siibwncsccns running by disturbed her inspection, 
when she flew away a short distance and, upon the ant leaving, 
returned and proceeded to close more effectively with further 
material gathered by forelegs and mandibles from a radius of 
al^oiit one inch. After a short locality stud}' in gradually widen- 
