62 Some Solitary Wasps op Texas. 
off and this process repeated a number of times until the legs were 
finally cut off all around, only the palpi of all the appendages being 
left. 
(b) Agenia Subcorticalis (Walsh), and Agenia Mellipes 
(Sat). 
In contrast to A. accepta and her ally just considered, A. mel- 
lipes and subcorticalis have a sombre hue in perfect accord with 
the dark recesses where they build their adobe cells in secret. 
Mellipes is metallic blue, almost black in color and measures about 
three-eighths of an inch in length ; subcorticales is somewhat larger 
and is distinguished by her red hind femora. 
My only acquaintance among the members of the species mellipes 
betrayed the location of her home by the directness of her advance 
toward it. Under a leaf on the ground in the angle formed by 
two roots of a large elm Tree was the wasp’s nesting place and 
thither she was making trip after trip carrying pellets of mud for 
the construction of her nest. Like Alyson melleus , mellipes has the 
habit of alighting on the ground a little distance from the nest 
and covering this latter part of her journey on foot. She enters 
the archway that conceals her nest without hesitation but is more 
cautious on departure, looking out on the world and waving her 
long antennas before darting away on her errand. The wasp paid 
no attention to me; I was nothing to her, nor were, f apparently, any 
of the other objects of her environment. For I took away some 
stems of poison ivy that obstructed my view and endangered 
my health; I even pushed back the leaf that covered the nest 
in order to observe her work — all this, without affecting her 
comings and goings in the least. Agenia was building her 
third cell ; and since thirty to forty more trips are needed 
to complete each one, her familiarity with the surroundings finds 
an easy explanation. From 4:30 to 5:15, July 31, mellipes made 
fifteen trips requiring from one to five minutes each. The little 
round pellets of mud which she carried home in her mandibles were 
added to the cylindrical wall until it had been built out to about 
the length of the wasp’s body. Fifteen to twenty seconds was suf- 
ficient time for the wasp to apply each load of mortar carried home. 
After the required length of the cell, which now looked a good deal 
like a barrel lying on its side, had been reached, the inside was 
carefully plastered and calcimined with a number of pellets of mud, 
the wasp reaching in for her whole length and at times working 
upside down. Possibly the wasp was adding an extra amount of 
