At length the game is brought to the edge of the well, its antennæ hanging into the mouth, and there is an exact repetition of the method used by S. flavipennis, and, though in less striking conditions, by S. occitanica. She enters alone, reappears at the entrance, seizes the antennæ, and drags in the Acridian. While she was within I have pushed the prey rather farther off, and have always obtained precisely the same result as in the case of the huntress of crickets. In both Sphegidæ there was the same persistence in plunging into their burrows before dragging down their prey. We must recollect that S. flavipennis does not always allow herself to be duped by my trick of withdrawing the insect. There are elect tribes among them,—strong-minded families,—who after a while find out the tricks of the experimenter, and know how to baffle them. But these revolutionaries capable of progress are the few; the rest, rigid conservatives in manners and customs, are the majority, the crowd. I cannot say whether the hunters of Acrididæ show more or less cunning in different districts. But the most remarkable thing, and the one to which I want specially to come, is this. After withdrawing the prey of S. albisecta several times from the mouth of the hole, and obliging her to fetch it back, I profited by her descent to the bottom of her den to seize and put the prey where she could not find it. She came up, sought about for a long time, and, when quite convinced that it was not to be found, went down again. A few moments later she reappeared. Was it to return to the chase? Not the least in the world; she began to close the hole, and with no temporary cover, such as a small flat stone to mark the orifice, but with a solid mass of carefully collected dust and gravel swept into the passage until it was quite filled. S. albisecta only makes a single cell at the bottom of her well, and puts in but one victim. This one specimen had been caught and dragged to the edge of the hole, and if it was not stored, that was my fault, not her’s. The Sphex worked by an inflexible rule, and according to that rule she completed the work by stopping up the hole even if empty. Here we have an exact repetition of the useless labour of S. occitanica whose dwelling I rifled.