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I am not sufficiently acquainted with her habits to describe them; above all, I know nothing of her hunting-tactics. But her dwelling is familiar to me: it is a burrow, which I have seen her begin, complete and close according to the customary method of the Digger-wasps.
The ways of the digger-wasps of various species were familiar, but I now noted a feature of wasp-engineering which indeed seems to await its chronicler, as I find no mention of it by the wasp-historians. At the exact centre of my circle, in place of a cavity, I now found a tiny pile of stones, supported upon a small stick and fragment of leaf, which had been first drawn across the opening.
Off in the ferns there beat a warning tattoo the loud whir of the snake's tail against a skunk-cabbage leaf. In my hand was a slender dogwood switch that I had been poking into the holes of the digger-wasps up the hillside. If one thing more than another will turn a snake tail to in a hurry it is the song of a switch.
During the last few years, therefore, I have profited by my winter leisure to collect, from spots noted as favourable during the working-season, a few handfuls of cocoons of various Digger-wasps, notably of the Bee-eating Philanthus, who has just furnished us with an inventory of provisions.
These marvellous results interested me too much not to inspire me with fresh devices when I pursued my investigations. Earlier enquiries had taught me that the larvae of the Digger-wasps are fairly indifferent to the nature of the game, though the mother always supplies them with the same diet. I had succeeded in rearing them on a great variety of prey, without paying regard to their normal fare.
This front part is moulded, so to speak, by the narrow entrance-hole made in the skin and henceforth retains its slender formation. As a matter of fact, a similar configuration recurs, in varying degrees, in the larvae of the Digger-wasps whose ration consists of a bulky quarry which takes a long time to consume.
Its hinder half, which is constantly outside the victim's belly, has the shape and fulness usual in the larvae of the Digger-wasps, whereas the front half, which, once it has dived under the skin of the exploited victim, does not come out again until the time arrives for spinning the cocoon, tapers off suddenly into a snake-like neck.
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