Mistaken Instinct.
Some' time ago, when building was going on at my residence here, the workmen mixed a quantity of Portland cement for use. A sand wasp, "busy constructing her clay nest for her brood, found out the moist mass, and doubtless delighted to have her mortar ready mixed to her hand without any trouble to herself, used the same for her building* I often watched her fly out of the window straight to the cement heap, and, after kneading up some, of it into a pellet of the usual size, back she would' come and plaster it onto the structure. Of course with .material so near at hand the building progressed rapidly, and was soon completed, each cell furnished with its quota of caterpillars and an egg^ and. then carefully stoppered. Alas for the inmate! no victim to monkish tyranny and cruelty was - more securely bricked up in the thickness of a wall " within a living tomb."
For there waa seen in that dark wall Two niches narrow, deep, and tall. Who enters at each grisly door, Shall ne'er I ween find exit more. In each a slender meal was laid. If we substitute 10 for two cells we have a perfect picture of the nest of the sand wasp, and the Portland cement, setting as hard as stone,' has effectually prevented the escape of the imago of the wasp on attaining their full growth.-JE. L. Layaed (British Consulate, Noumea, August 3, 1888).
Mistaken Instinct.
Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 35
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