APRIL, 1900. PECKHAM — INSTINCTS AND HABITS OF WASPS. 
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more caterpillars at intervals of about thirty minutes, and then, 
after wedging a pebble into the neck of the opening, she began to 
fill it in solidly, scratching in dirt and packing in lumps of earth 
which were brought in her mandibles. We did not allow her to 
complete this operation, as it would have made excavation more 
difficult, but caught her and dug out the nest. The tunnel ran 
down obliquely for live inches, being two inches below the surface 
at the pocket. In it we found a wasp-larva which was at least 
three days old, and the four caterpillars. There were no signs of 
the banqueting that must have already taken place. We carried 
this larva home with us and it ate the caterpillars up clean, finish- 
ing with a fifth which we supplied from another nest, and going 
into its cocoon on September sixteenth. The additional food 
would probably have been brought by the mother had we not 
interfered. The caterpillars all wriggled about upon the slightest 
stimulation, and remained in this lively state until they were 
eaten. They belonged to four different species. 
In a second nest to wdiich food was being carried, we found 
four caterpillars and a larva about three days old, all the con- 
ditions being like those in the other example. Evidently the larva 
had been fed from day to day, since four or five days must have 
elapsed since the making of the nest. 
Odynerus capra Sauss» 
We had often seen this wasp gathering earth on the very hard 
clay and gravel path that leads to our boat house, but had always 
failed in our efforts to follow her to the nesting place. Even 
when we called in our auxiliary force of children and stationed 
them with the greatest care as to their positions, she baffled our 
pursuit, disappearing among the foliage of the thickly wooded 
ravine at one side of the path. However, her fearlessness and her 
tendency to utilize any convenient crevice at last betrayed her. 
One of our neighbors in the country keeps a large tin horn 
hanging under the porch. One day when she wished to use it no 
amount of blowing would bring forth a sound, and when she un- 
screwed the mouth piece to investigate the matter, out tumbled 
several small green caterpillars and a quantity of dry mud. When 
we heard of this incident we beg'ged that, if it should be repeated, 
the nest and its contents might be saved for us, and on the second 
of September we received the mouth piece of the horn with a 
message to the effect that a wasp had been working at it for some 
days and had just closed it up. Examination showed that there 
were three cells, each containing larva and a supply of caterpillars, 
of which there were ten in the cell most lately formed, and only 
one left uneaten in the oldest. The caterpillars, all of them being 
