1980] 
Parker, Tepedino, & Vincent — Ammophila 
257 
1979). Some female A. aberti did construct all their nests, both 
abandoned and completed, in the same area of one of the beds. For 
example. Yellow Legs clustered all twelve of her nests in bed 1, while 
White Thorax split her eight nests between local areas in beds 1 and 2. 
Silver was, again, atypical; she divided her eight nests almost equally 
among three beds. Thus, in some cases abandoned nests may be of use 
in deterring enemies, but this suggestion requires further study. 
Equally perplexing was the reinspection of nests for several days 
after they had been completed or abandoned. Reinspection cannot be 
explained as a result of conditioning to return to the new nest byway 
of the older ones, because it did not occur on every return trip to the 
new nest. One possibility is that females inspect older nests externally 
as a means of assessing the incidence of disturbance, i.e., enemies in 
the area, and then use this information to “decide” whether or not to 
move to other nesting areas. 
Acknowledgements 
We are indebted to D. M. Weisman, Systematic Entomology 
Laboratory, USDA, for all prey identifications and to Howard Evans 
and Arnold Menke for helpful comments on the manuscript. 
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