Big brown-and-yellow wasps these strangers were, and all in a most desperate hurry. Scores of them were already hard at work digging away in the firmly packed sand of the path.
As these new-comers seemed to care very little who watched them at their work, I sat down on an upturned flower-pot in the shade of a friendly lilac, determined to make their acquaintance.
MAKING A HOME.
Hardly had I settled myself before one of the wasps approached. She seemed searching for something, for she flew rapidly back and forth, now alighting for a moment—now darting away again. At last she dropped upon the ground close to me and began to bite the earth with her strong jaws. When quite a little heap lay before her she pushed it to one side with her hind feet and then returned to her digging. In five minutes she had an opening big enough to get into; every time she appeared she backed up out of it pushing a huge load of sand as big as herself behind her. Soon all around the hole was a high bank of earth, and she found it necessary to make a path across it, and push her loads over that. Two hours' hard work, and the house was finished. It was very simply planned, and had only one room down at the end of a long, narrow passage. But simple as it was, this little creature had done more work in the two hours than a man could do in a day. That is, of course, taking her size into consideration. And she did not even now stop to rest. Not she! With one last look into the house, to make sure she was leaving all as it should be, she flew away. In a moment her strong wings had taken her quite out of sight but it was not long before she re-appeared. Back and forth she hastened, at one moment flying through the grape-arbor, at the next wheeling above the cabbage-bed. All this time the object of her search, a fat young locust, was quietly sitting on a gate-post, quite forgetting, as even locusts sometimes will, that he had an enemy in the world.
A moment later and the wasp's sharp eyes had found him out; and then, quick as lightning, she darted down upon him, and pierced him with her sting. When the locust lay perfectly still, the wasp seized him and flew off. Arrived at her hole, she tumbled him head foremost in at the door, expecting him, of course, to fall quite to the bottom. But her calculations had been slightly at fault; the locust was too fat to go in, and there he stuck with his head and shoulders in the hole and his body in the air. Here was a dilemma! But my wasp friend was evidently not one to be overcome by difficulties of this sort. She flew off again, and this time returned with two other wasps; they crowded round the hole, and began digging away the earth which pressed close about the locust. In a short time they seemed satisfied, for they stood up and pushed at the object of their toils. Slowly he slid down out of sight, and she who had brought him hurried after. She laid an egg close to him in her house; then, hurrying up, began to carry back the earth she had before taken out, and in a short time the door was securely closed. Then she scraped away, and patted down all the loose earth, till she had made it quite impossible for any evil-minded creature to find any traces of her home.
The wasp knew very well that her egg would soon hatch out; that the little white grub, her chick, would at once begin to feed upon the locust, which would supply food till the young one was full-grown.
The following morning I again visited the garden, to see how the home-making progressed. Soon a handsome wasp came running toward my seat, under the lilac, near which was a newly made hole.
"She knows me! she is no longer afraid!" But no; she stopped short and raised her long, delicate antennæ, evidently on the lookout for danger. She could not be the same wasp I had watched yesterday; but how was I to make sure? They seemed all exactly alike.
I was all this time as motionless as if I had been turned to stone.