58 
Psyche 
[March 
a plastic bag with cyanide did the adults fly from the nest in a 
sudden burst. All of the 230 adults present were females. Since 
the nest was collected during the day there were probably more out 
foraging. 
The six leaves surrounding the nest were joined together with 
large amounts of a dry ? transparent film, the resulting structure 
forming a watertight envelope around the nest, with a broad opening 
at the distal end (Figs. 1 & 2). The film, probably a secretion 
produced by the adult wasps, resembled thick cellophane in that it 
was quite pliable, crackled when flexed and tore much like cello- 
phane. If wetted with water it softened but retained its form. The 
film never covered leaf surfaces, but did bridge gaps of up to four 
centimeters between leaves. Each sheet of the film had a series of 
curved ridges of thicker material ; these probably marked the bound- 
aries between successive applications of the material to the growing 
edge (Fig. 2). 
The nest consisted of two horizontal combs constructed of a fine- 
textured carton. The upper comb was the larger, being 4.5 cm wide 
by 6.5 cm long. It was suspended below a single leaf by three carton 
pillars averaging 5 mm in length. The largest of these was 3 mm 
thick, located near the center of the comb and attached to the leaf 
surface next to the midrib. The other two pillars, one on either 
side of the central one, were attached to the midrib of the leaf. A 
fourth pillar joined one side of the comb to an adjacent leaf. The 
cells of this comb opened downward. The second comb (2.0 cm 
wide by 4.0 cm long) was directly below the upper one and fixed 
to the dorsal surface of a smaller leaf by five pillars 5 mm long. 
The cells of this comb opened upward, though there were several 
irregularly-placed cells which opened to one side (Fig. 1). The 
two combs were joined by a single pillar issuing from the face of the 
upper comb near its center and attaching directly to a pillar at one 
end of the lower comb. A second pillar connected the face of the 
upper comb directly to the surface of the lower leaf next to the 
lower comb. The pillars were constructed entirely of carton. The 
cells of each comb averaged 3.0 mm in diameter (measured from 
midpoints of opposite walls). Cells which had produced adults aver- 
aged 8.0 mm in depth. The silken cocoons spun by the larvae were 
slightly domed and were not covered with bits of carton, as they are 
in at least some species of the genera Mischocyttarus , Clypearia and 
Epipona (Jeanne, unpublished data). 
