Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI. THE INHABITANTS OF AN OLD STUMP. Rhopalum pedicellatum Pack., and Stigmus Americanus Pack. In a search for the nests of one of our garden wasps we found, in the woods to the north of the fence, and not far distant from it, an old, weather-beaten stump which was riddled with holea both large and small. The large ones were evidently the passage ways of ants and were in constant use. The small ones seemed to be uninhabited but thinking that possibly they might contain the nests we were in search of, and hoping that if we watched long enough we might see our wasps flitting in and out, we settled ourselves close by. We were resolved to stay as long as was necessary and we blessed the fate that made it our duty to sit on the grass under the shade of a wide-spreading oak rather (han in the distressing glare and heat of the garden, for this was on the tenth of July, and the weather was what the farmers- call seasonable. Twenty, thirty, forty minutes passed. Our eyes ached with persistent gazing and we had nearly made up our minds that the likely looking little holes were untenanted, when lo! a tiny wasp, carrying something which we could not see distinctly, darted into one of them. It was gone so quickly that we could not be sure that it was the species we were looking for, and when it reappeared, after two or three minutes, we saw that it was not. This point being determined we watched the hole with redoubled interest. It was wearisome work, for the wasp stayed away a long time and we dared not let our gaze wander lest she should slip in without our knowledge. At the end of thirty-five minutes shereturned, but again we failed to see what she carried. She flew with great rapidity and we scarcely caught sight of her before she vanished into her nest. We could not…
