Finally, there are other rapid and consecutive actions so closely connected that the execution of the second implies necessarily the repetition of the first, even when this has become useless. I have already said how Sphex flavipennis persists in going down into her burrow alone, having brought near it the cricket which I cruelly removed immediately. Her repeated discomfitures did not make her give up the preliminary domiciliary visit, useless as it is when repeated ten or twenty times. Chalicodoma muraria exhibits under another form a like repetition of an act useless itself, but a necessary prelude to the next one. Arrived with her booty, she goes through a double act of storage. First she plunges head first into the cell to disgorge the contents of her crop; then she comes out, returning at once backward to brush off her load of pollen. At the moment when she is about to enter, tail first, I gently put her aside with a straw, thus hindering her second action. She begins all over again, going head first into the cell, although her crop is empty. Then comes the turn of going in backward. I instantly put her aside again, and again she goes in head first. Once more I use my straw. And this goes on as long as the observer pleases. Put aside just as she is about to introduce her hinder parts into the cell, she returns to the orifice and persists in descending head first. Sometimes she goes quite down—sometimes only half-way, or perhaps there is a mere pretence at descending, and she only stoops her head in the opening, but at any rate this quite useless action—for the honey is already disgorged—invariably precedes the entrance backward to deposit pollen. It is almost the movement of a machine, not a wheel of which moves till the main one begins to turn. DESCRIPTIVE NOTES The following Hymenoptera appear new to me in the French fauna. I append their description:— Cerceris antoniæ, H. Fab. Length—16–18 millimetres. Black, closely and strongly punctured; clypeus raised like a nose, i.e. forming a convex projection, large at the base, pointed at the end—like half a cone cut down its length; crest between the antennæ projecting; a line above crest, cheeks, and a large dot behind each eye, yellow; hood—yellow with black point; mandibles, rusty yellow; tips, black. The 4th and 5th joints of antennæ, rusty yellow, the rest brown. Two dots on prothorax, wing scales and postscutellum, yellow; first segment of abdomen with two dot-like spots; four next on posterior edge having a yellow band sharply hollowed in triangle form, or even broken, and this the more as the segment is a less distant one. Under part of the body, black; feet entirely of rusty yellow colour; wings slightly bronzed at tip. Female. Male unknown to me.