204 
HYMEN OPT ERA. 
Fabr., are the commonest species, but the distribution of some species 
is local. The last is a large robust insect, very unlike the remainder. 
Sceliphron includes the more robust mud-wasps so commonly seen 
in houses, which lay up spiders in earthen cells. S. madraspatanum 
Fig. 111.— Sceliphron madraspatanum ; nest removed from a corner and 
SEEN FROM BEHIND ; IN ONE CELL A LARVA FEEDING ; IN ANOTHER 
A SPIDER WAITING TO BE EATEN. [F. M. H.J 
Fabr. (Fig. 113), is the commonest species; the female constructs mud 
nests, consisting of two to seven elongate cells, placed side by side ; 
they are most beautifully constructed of mud and when unfinished 
are very striking objects (Fig. 112). But when the whole number 
are completed, stocked and closed, she puts mud over the whole in an 
apparently irregular manner but so as to give it the appearance of a 
rough lump of mud, when it is much less easily noticed. The nest 
is placed on a wall, a window-sill, on furniture or on tree trunks, and 
may be carefully concealed or in the open. 
The cell is made, the first spider brought in and an egg laid on it 
near the base of the abdomen. The rest of the spiders are then brought; 
if the work cannot be completed before dark, a temporary mud cover 
is put on as the wasp does not sleep in the cell. When full, the cell is 
closed and a new one begun. The egg is white, soft, about 4 m.m. 
long. The larva on hatching feeds first on the abdomen of the 
spider it is on and then on its cephalothorax, proceeding afterwards 
to work upwards through the remaining paralysed spiders. (Fig. 111.) 
The larva is white, soft, leg-less, the segments indistinctly marked, 
