, she
proceeds to fill the cavity, biting the earth with her mandibles, and
with her spiked legs kicking and shoving in the loose soil thus
collected, ever and anon backing up to the hole and inserting the tip of
her tail to force down the mass. As the filling is nearly completed,
with the fore feet and jaws the surrounding earth is scraped for
material, which she immediately proceeds to pack by a rhythmic tamping
motion of the tail, until, at the end of five minutes, perhaps, the
ground-level is finally reached, the surface smoothed, and no sign
remains to mark the grave of the stupefied spider victim.

[Illustration]

Not an hour after this episode I was treated to another of even more
interest. As I took my seat upon the door-step I started into flight a
big black wasp, upon whose doings I had evidently been intruding.

This wasp was much larger than the one just described, being about an
inch in length. Its wings were pale brown and its body jet-black, with
sundry small yellowish spots about the thorax. But its most conspicuous
feature, and one which would ever fix the identity of the creature, was
the long, slender, wire-like waist, occupying a quarter of the length of
its entire body.

In a moment or two the wasp had returned, and stood at the mouth of the
shallow pit. Eying me intently for a space, and satisfied that there was
nothing to fear, she dived into the hollow and began to excavate,
turning round and round as she gnawed the earth at the bottom, and
shovelling it out with her spiked legs. Now and then she would back out
of the burrow to reconnoitre, and her alert attitude at such times was
very amusing--her antennae drooping towards the burrow and in incessant
motion; the abdomen on its long wire stem bobbing up and down at regular
intervals, accompanied by a flipping motion of the wings; the short fore
legs, one or both, upraised with comical effect.

[Illustration]

As the tunnel was deepened a new method of excavation was employed. It
has now reached a depth of an inch, only the extremity of the insect's
body appearing, and the two hindermost legs clinging to surrounding
earth for purchase. The deep digging is now accompanied by a continual
buzzing noise, resembling that produced by a bluebottle fly held captive
between one's fingers. At intervals of about ten or fifteen seconds the
wasp would quickly back out of the burrow, bringing a load of sand,
which it held between the back of the jaws and