Transactions Texas Academy of Science. 73 
T 
away in the direction of the creek, seventy-five yards distant, pre- 
sumably for a drink, and returns to continue her work where she 
left off. 
Like T. rubrocinctum a day^s work with texense consists of at 
least storing and closing one cell, though two cells a day is not un- 
usual for her. Of those individuals on which I have detailed notes 
one stored two cells in one day and one cell the next forenoon, two 
others each two cells in one day, one stored nine Attids, one Tho- 
misid and three Epeireds and closed the nest all in three and one- 
half hours; another stored and partitioned off one cell in eight 
hours and stored and plugged up the second cell in ten hours. 
Thus texense is more industrious than rubrocinctum , which shows 
that a semi-tropical climate is not enervating to the wasp race at 
least. 
The development of the young wasp is more rapid in the Texas 
species than in the northern. The period required for the egg and 
larval stages of texense together varies from six and one-fourth to 
seven days and averages nearly seven days. One larva spun its 
cocoon in five and one-half days but never reached the imago stage. 
The length of the pupal period is a little more or less than thirty 
days. 
T. texense captures eight to twenty-five spiders for a single cell, 
the average being about fifteen. When a nest is composed of two 
superposed or adjoining cells the deeper one or the one first stored 
has invariably the greater number of spiders; the difference is 
specially noticeable when both cells have been stored the same day. 
The wasps seem to have a decided sense of fatigue, which is quite 
natural. The great majority of the spiders are alive when brought 
in; the majority of these live to about the third day. This accords 
with the findings of the Milwaukee students in the case of T. ru- 
brocinctum. 
T. texense begins work early in the year and is on the crest of 
her prosperity at the time rubrocinctum, her northern cousin, is 
“losing interest in the family affairs and taking a well-earned holi- 
day on the blossoms of the aster and the goldenrod.” Texense is 
our most common solitary wasp next to the red P'elopaeus, among 
which she may be seen at work, the former decorating ( ?) the wall 
with her edifices, the latter modestly occupying the out-of-the-way 
crannies and crevices that might otherwise be used by spiders as 
their retreats. 
