If the reader will come under my umbrella, or profit by my rabbit burrow, this is the sight which will meet him towards the end of July. A Bembex (B. rostrata) arrives of a sudden and alights without hesitation or investigation at a spot which, as far as I see, differs in nothing from the rest of the sandy surface. With her front tarsi, which, armed with stiff rows of hairs, suggest at once broom, brush, and rake, she begins to dig a subterranean dwelling, standing on her four hind feet, the two last slightly apart, while the front ones alternately scratch and sweep the loose sand. The precision and rapidity of the action could not be greater were the circular movement of the tarsi worked by a spring. The sand, shot backward under the creature, clears the arch of its hind legs, trickling like a liquid in a continuous thread, describing a parabola and falling some eight inches away. This dusty jet, constantly fed for five or ten minutes, is enough to show with what dizzy rapidity the tools are used. I could quote no second example of equal swiftness, which yet in no way detracts from the elegance and free movements of the insect as it advances and retires, now on one side, now on another, without allowing the parabola of sand to stop. The soil hollowed is of the lightest kind. As the Hymenopteron excavates, the sand near falls and fills the cavity. In the landslip are mingled little bits of wood, decayed leaf-stalks, and grains of gravel larger than the rest. The Bembex picks these up in her mandibles, and, moving backward, carries them to a distance, returning to sweep again, but always lightly, without attempting to penetrate into the earth. What is the object in this surface labour? It would be impossible to learn from a first glance, but after spending many days with my dear Hymenoptera, and grouping together the scattered results of my observations, I think I divine the motive of these proceedings.