mud,—nothing more. It is undeserving of attention. This tender, faithful mother, who wears herself out in efforts to reach her nursling’s cradle, cares nothing just now but for her entrance door—the door she is used to. That which goes to her maternal heart is the longing to find the well-known passage. Yet the way is open; nothing holds her back, and under her eyes wriggles the grub, the final object of her anxiety. With one spring she would be at the side of the unhappy larva who so needs help. Why does she not rush to her beloved nursling? She could dig a new habitation and get it swiftly underground. But no—she persists in seeking a way which no longer exists, while her son is grilled under her eyes. I was boundlessly surprised by this obtuse maternity, since maternity is the most powerful and most fertile in resource of all feelings which move the animal. Hardly could I have believed my eyes but for endless experiments on the Cerceris and Philanthidæ, as well as on Bembecidæ of different species. Stranger still, the mother, after long hesitation, at length entered the unroofed passage—all that was left of the corridor. She advanced, drew back, and gave a few careless sweeps without stopping. Guided by vague recollections, and perhaps by the smell of venison exhaled from the heap of Diptera, she came occasionally as far as the end of the gallery, the very spot where lay the larva. Mother and son had met. At this moment of reunion after long anxiety, were there earnest solicitude, sign of tenderness, or of maternal joy? Whoever thinks so has only to repeat my experiment to convince himself of the contrary. The Bembex did not recognise her larva at all; it was a worthless thing, in her way,—nothing but an embarrassment. She walked over it and trampled it unheeding, as she hurried backwards and forwards. If she wanted to dig at the bottom of the cell, she rudely kicked it behind her,—pushed, upset, expelled it, as she might have treated a large bit of gravel which got in her way while at work. Thus maltreated, the larva bethought itself of defence. I have seen it seize her by one tarsus with no more ceremony than she would have shown in biting the foot of a Dipteron caught by her. The struggle was sharp, but at last the fierce mandibles let go, and the mother flew wildly away with her sharpest hum. This unnatural scene of the son biting the mother, and perhaps even trying to eat her, is unusual, and brought about by circumstances which the observer is not always able to conjure up. What one can always witness is the profound indifference of the Hymenopteron for its offspring, and the brutal disdain with which that inconvenient heap, the grub, is treated. Once she has raked out the far end of the passage, which is done in a moment, the Bembex returns to her favourite point, the threshold, to resume her useless researches. As for the grub, it continues to struggle and wriggle wherever the maternal kicks may have landed it.