My Studio Neighbors | Page 3

years' standing,
which makes a dense span of a length of about two feet from a clump
of dried hydrangea blossoms to the sill of a transom-window, and
which, of course, somewhere in its dusty spread, tapers off into a dark
tunnel, where lurks the eight-eyed schemer, "o'erlooking all his waving
snares around."
Sooner or later, it would seem, every too constant buzzing visitor
encroaches on its domain, and is drawn to its silken vortex, and is
eventually shed below as a clean dried specimen; for this is an agalena
spider, which dispenses with the winding-sheet of the field
species--epeira and argiope. Last week a big bumble-bee-like fly paid
me a visit and suddenly disappeared. To-day I find him dried and ready
for the insect-pin and the cabinet on the window-sill beneath the web,
which affords at all times its liberal entomological
assortment--Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera. Many
are the rare specimens which I have picked from these charnel
remnants of my spider net.
Ah, hark! The talking "robber-fly" (Asilus), with his nasal, twangy buzz!

"Waiow! Wha-a-ar are ye?" he seems to say, and with a suggestive
onslaught against the window-pane, which betokens his satisfied quest,
is out again at the window with a bluebottle-fly in the clutch of his
powerful legs, or perhaps impaled on his horny beak.
Solitude! Not here. Amid such continual distraction and entertainment
concentration on the immediate task in hand is not always of easy
accomplishment.
[Illustration]
Last week, after a somewhat distracted morning with some queer
beguiling little harlequins on the bittersweet-vine about my porch, of
which I have previously written, I had finally settled down to my work,
and was engaged in putting the finishing touches upon a long-delayed
drawing, when a new visitor claimed my attention--a small hornet,
which alights upon the window-sill within half a yard from my face. To
be sure, she was no stranger here at my studio--even now there are two
of her yonder beneath the spider-nest--and was, moreover, an old friend,
whose ways were perfectly familiar to me; but this time the insect
engaged my particular attention because it was not alone, being
accompanied by a green caterpillar bigger than herself, which she held
beneath her body as she travelled along on the window-sill so near my
face. "So, so! my little wren-wasp, you have found a satisfactory
cranny at last, and have made yourself at home. I have seen you prying
about here for a week and wondered where you would take up your
abode."
The insect now reaches the edge of the sill, and, taking a fresh grip on
her burden, starts off in a bee-line across my drawing-board and
towards the open door, and disappears. Wondering what her whimsical
destination might be, my eye involuntarily began to wander about the
room in quest of nail-holes or other available similar crannies, but
without reward, and I had fairly settled back to my work and forgotten
the incident, when the same visitor, or another just like her, again
appeared, this time clearing the window-sill in her flight, and landing
directly upon my drawing-board, across which she sped, half creeping,
half in flight, and tugging her green caterpillar as before--longer than

herself--which she held beneath her body.
"This time I shall learn your secret," I thought. "Two such challenges as
this are not to be ignored." So I concluded this time to observe her
progress carefully. In a moment she had reached the right-hand edge of
my easel-board, from which she made a short flight, and settled upon a
large table in the centre of the room, littered with its characteristic
chaos of professional paraphernalia--brushes, paints, dishes, bottles,
color-boxes, and cloths--among which she disappeared. It was a
hopeless task to disclose her, so I waited patiently to observe the spot
from which she would emerge, assuming that this, like the window-sill
and my easel, was a mere way-station on her homeward travels. But
she failed to appear, while I busied my wits in trying to recall which
particular item in the collection had a hole in it. Yes, there was a spool
among other odds and ends in a Japanese boat-basket. That must be it!
But on examination the paper still covered both ends, and I was again
at a loss. What, then, can be the attraction on my table? My wondering
curiosity was immediately satisfied, for as I turned back to the board
and resumed my work I soon discovered another wasp, with its
caterpillar freight, on the drawing-board. After a moment's pause she
made a quiet short flight towards the table, and what was my
astonishment to observe her alight directly upon the tip of the very
brush which I held in my hand, which, I now noted for the first time,
had a hole in its