. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. 43° Handbook of Nature-Study helpless while being eaten by a fat little grub which they would gladly devour, if they could Gt b, A mud-dauber and her nests, with cells cut open showing a, larva full grown; b, cocoon; c, young larva feeding on its spider-meat and d, an empty cell. Drawn by Anna C. Stryke. The wasp larva is a whitish, plump grub and it eats industriously until the spider meat is exhausted. It then weaves a cocoon of siUc about itself which just coA^ers the walls
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. 43° Handbook of Nature-Study helpless while being eaten by a fat little grub which they would gladly devour, if they could Gt b, A mud-dauber and her nests, with cells cut open showing a, larva full grown; b, cocoon; c, young larva feeding on its spider-meat and d, an empty cell. Drawn by Anna C. Stryke. The wasp larva is a whitish, plump grub and it eats industriously until the spider meat is exhausted. It then weaves a cocoon of siUc about itself which just coA^ers the walls of its home tube, like a silken tapestry; within this cocoon the grub changes to a pupa. When it finally emerges, it is a full-grown wasp with jaws which are able to cut a door in the end of its tube, through which it comes out into the world, a free and accepted mason. The females or queens, which issue late in the season, hide in warm or protected places during the winter; they particularly like the folds of lace window curtains for hibernating quarters. There they remain until spring comes, when they go off to build their plaster houses. There are about seventy species of mud wasps in our country. Some provision their nests with caterpillars instead of spiders. This is true of the jug-builder, which makes her nest jug-shaped and places two or three of them side by side upon a twig. She uses hair in her mortar, which makes it stronger. This is necessary, since the jug is saddled upon twigs .i^nd is more exposed to the rain than is the nest of the most common mud- dauber. The jug-builder is brown in color and has yellow markings on the abdomen; but she does not resemble the yeUow-jackets, because she has a threadlike waist. There are other species of mud wasps which use any small cavity they can find for the nest, plastering up the opening after the nest has been provisioned and the egg laid. We often find keyholes, knot-holes and even the cavity in the telephone receiver, pl
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