CLASS I. INSECTA: ORDER 3. HYMENOPTERA. 
565 
where they lay their eggs. Most of the other hymenoptera which we have noticed, feed themselves 
and their young on honey ; these are of a more predaceous nature. They provide a supply of 
food for the larvae, consisting of spiders and other insects which they kill and paralyze with their 
stings. Gosse gives us the following curious account of them : 
" We once witnessed with great interest the eflPorts of one of these Burrowers, Pompilus viatica, 
to immure a heavy spider. A hole, about as large as a quill, was made in a dusty path through 
a field, around which was the earth that had been dug out ; within a few inches lay a large, 
round-bellied, dusky spider, Lycosa, motion- 
less, which the Pompilus was trying to drag- 
to the hole ; it was up-hill, however, and 
was no easy matter. She caught hold of one 
of the thighs of the spider with her jaws, 
and with her tail toward the hole began 
to tug; but the dust continually gave way 
under her feet, and she could not make much 
progress. She would tug for a few seconds, 
then let go, and run to the hole, descending 
head foremost, but immediately coming out 
as she went in, head downward ; once, how- 
ever, she turned in the hole. Sometimes, 
by sudden exertions, she succeeded in drag- 
ging the spider a little way, and once, as 
she was getting along finely, and had got 
nearly half up the hill, the round spider sud- 
denly rolled down, dragging the wasp com- 
pletely over in a somerset. At length we 
took pity on her, and while she was in the 
hole, moved the spider to a more favorable position. On coming out, she went to the old spot, 
but, finding no spider, seemed quite bewildered, wandering to and fro, and now and then tracing 
the way to and from the hole ; soon, however, she found the spider again, and at length succeeded 
in dragging him to the mouth of the hole. Previously to this, we had observed her dig with 
the fore-feet for a few seconds at the mouth of the hole, as if conscious that it needed enlarging. 
Having got the prey up to the mouth, she descended, tail foremost, and tried to draw it down, 
grasping the thigh close to the thorax ; the spider was, however, too large to go in this way, and 
so she instantly let go, and seized him by the extremity of the abdomen, where she had not 
touched him before, and drew him down. Even thus, it was a tight squeeze, but at length he dis- 
appeared within the hole, and, as the wasp did not appear for some time, we left the place. All 
the time she was dragging him her wings were shut, but in constant motion, flirting up and 
down. 
" A South- American genus, Fehjjceus, allied to the preceding, is called the Dauber, from its 
singular habit of |)lacingits nest of mud against the walls and ceiling in the interior of the houses. 
When finished, these nests look like handfuls of clay, which have been thrown up at random and 
adhered; but inwardly they contain very smooth and regular cells, each containing a grub and 
a dozen or more of spiders. The construction of these nests, which we have observed with great 
minuteness, is performed by the Dauber bringing little pellets of clay in her mouth, about as large 
as peas, one after another, which she spreads and arranges with her jaws ; previously to closing 
them up, she lays an egg in the bottom of each, and places over it, as we have said, from twelve to 
eighteen spiders, not killed but rendered helpless. The grub spends its life in this dark and 
solitary prison, and when full grown, having eaten the abdomens of all or nearly all the spiders, 
forms an oval cocoon of a brittle shelly substance, and goes into pupa ; the perfect fly when 
evolved gnaws its way through the mud walls with its strong jaws, and for the first time beholds 
the light." 
THE DAUBER. 
