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Identifier: oninstinctshabit00peck
Title:
On the instincts and habits of the solitary wasps
Year:
1898 (
1890s)
Authors:
Peckham, George Williams, 1845-1914 Peckham, Elizabeth (Gifford), 1854-
Subjects:
Wasps
Publisher:
Madison, Wis. : Pub. by the state
Contributing Library:
Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor:
Smithsonian Libraries
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unted for it for an hour and a half,leaving the caterpillar on the ground near by. We could nothelp feeling sorry that we had interrupted the contented rou-tine of her life. She finally gave up in despair and we tookpossession of the deserted caterpillar. Just here must be told the story of one little wasp whose in-dividuality stands out in our minds more distinctly than thatof any of the others. Wei remember her as the most fastidiousand perfect little worker of the whole season, so nice was shein her adaptation of means to ends, so busy and contented in herlabor of love, and so pretty in her pride over her completedwork. In filling up her neet she put her head down into it andbit away the loose earth from the sides, letting it fall to the bot-tom of the burrow, and then, after a quantity had accumulated,jammed it down with her head. Earth was then brought fromthe outside and pressed in, and then more was bitten from thesides. When, at last, the filling was level with the ground, she
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AMMOPHILA AND HER CATERPILLABS. 23 brought a quantity of fine grains of dirt to the spot and pick-ing up a small pebble in her mandibles, used it as a hammerin pounding th^em down with rapid strokes, thus making thisspot as hard and firm as the surrounding surface. (Plate Y.)Before we could recover from our astonishment at this perfor-mance she had dropped her stone and was bringing more earth.We then threw ourselves down on the ground that not a motionmight be lost, and in a moment we saw her pick up the pebbleand again pound the earth into place with it, hammering nowhere and now there until all was level. Once more the wholeprocess was repeated, and then the little creature, all unconsciousof the commotion that she had aroused in our minds, uncon-scious, indeed, of our very existence and intent only on doingher work and doing it well, gave one final, comprehensiveglance around and flew away. We are claiming a great deal for Ammophila when we saythat she improvised a tool and made i
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