Let us pass on to the various contrivances of the Cerceris in making and provisioning her nest. I have already said that she chooses ground whose surface is beaten, compact, and solid. I should add that this ground must be dry and in full sunshine. This choice shows an intelligence, or, if you like, an instinct, which one is tempted to believe is the result of experience. Crumbly earth or mere sand would of course be easier to work, but then how construct an orifice which will remain wide open for ingress and exit, and a gallery whose walls will not constantly fall in, yield, and become blocked by the least rain? The choice is therefore both reasonable and perfectly well calculated. Our burrowing Hymenopteron hollows her gallery with her mandibles and front tarsi, which accordingly are furnished with stiff points to act as rakes. The orifice must not only have the diameter of the miner’s body, but be able to admit a prey of larger bulk. This shows admirable forethought. As the Cerceris digs deeper she brings out the rubbish, and this makes the heap which I compared to a tiny molehill. The gallery is not vertical, as this would have exposed it to be filled up by wind or other causes. Not far from the starting-point it makes an angle; its length is from seven to eight inches. At the far end the industrious mother establishes the cradle of her progeny. Five cells, separate and independent of one another, are hollowed in the shape and nearly of the size of an olive; within they are solid and polished. Each can contain three Buprestids, the ordinary allowance for a larva. The Cerceris lays an egg amid the three victims, and then stops up the gallery with earth, so that when once the provisions for the brood are laid in, the cells have no communication with the outside.