Transactions Texas Academy of Science. 
61 
woods. I saw the first specimen on October 21st. Walking along 
the street, I chanced upon her as she dropped a large Attid among 
a stream of ants passing back and forth. She flew np as I drew 
near and I used the interval of her absence to examine the spider, 
which had all the legs amputated, though it was allowed to retain 
its palps. 
Soon the wasp returned, grasped the spider by a coxal joint and 
carried it several feet further to the edge of a crevice in the ground. 
She then backed in, took hold of the spider and drew it down after 
her. Now came a test of patience which I failed to stand. After 
waiting three and three-fourths hours, I concluded that the wasp 
had escaped me, for I was used to quicker work of digging and 
storing a nest in sandy soil. I therefore dug down and found the 
crevice two inches deep, from the bottom of which the wasp had 
dug, almost vertically down, a nest one-fourth inch in diameter and 
three inches deep. Here I caught her, but failed to find the spider, 
which had possibly been left somewhere in the crevice. 
The other specimen I saw was again advancing with its spider 
where foraging ants were numerous. In fact, as I followed her, 
she suddenly disappeared with her victim in a deserted entrance to 
the ant-nest. In this case the spider, as far as I could make out, 
had lost but one of its appendages. 
It has not been my own good fortune to witness the amputation 
of a spider’s legs by an Agenia but I here report the observation 
of my friends Messrs. Julius Eggling and E. Jaeger on this opera- 
tion as it was related to me. A. accepta and her spider were the 
centre of the quarter hour’s excitement. The spider, a large gray 
Attid, was resting on a fence post when the wasp flew at it and 
administered the sting. To tell just how this was done was ask- 
ing the observers too much. In an instant the victim was limp and 
helpless and the wasp immediately cut off one of the spider’s legs, 
the shreddy bark of the cedar post affording the wasp a pretty firm 
foothold. The spider thereupon fell to the ground but the wasp 
soon found it again and proceeded to carry it off. The spider’s 
legs, however, interfered with her walking, for, as I have observed 
above, Agenia straddles her victim and advances forwards. The 
wasp dropped her burden and set lo work to cut off with her man- 
dibles two more of the spider’s legs. This was done very quickly; 
after one, two or three trials the leg snapped off like the end of a 
wire snaps off when a pair of nippers is applied. The spider was 
then taken up a second time but again set down owing to the inter- 
ference of the remaining legs. A few more legs were again nipped 
