Cerceris bupresticida must be an indefatigable, daring, and skilful huntress. The cleanness, the freshness of the beetles which she buries in her den testify that they are seized just as they emerge from the wooden galleries where their final metamorphosis takes place. But what inconceivable instinct urges a creature that lives solely on the nectar of flowers to seek amid a thousand difficulties animal food for carnivorous offspring, which it will never see, and to post itself on trees quite unlike one another, which hide deep in their trunks the insects which are to fall her victims? What entomological tact, yet more inconceivable, makes her lay down a strict law to select them in a single generic group, and to catch species differing very considerably in size, shape, and colour? You observe how unlike are Buprestis biguttata, with its slender long body and dark colour; B. octoguttata, oval-oblong, with great stains of a beautiful yellow on a blue or green ground; and B. micans, three or four times the size of B. biguttata, with a splendid metallic greeny gold. There is another very singular fact in the manœuvres of our assassin of Buprestids. The buried ones, like those which I have seized in the grasp of their murderers, give no sign of life, and are unquestionably quite dead, yet, as I observed with surprise, no matter when they are dug up, not only do they keep all their freshness of colour, but every bit of them—feet, antennæ, palpi, and the membranes which unite the various parts of their bodies—is perfectly supple and flexible. At first one supposes the explanation, as far as concerns the buried ones, to be in the coolness of the ground, and absence of air and light, and for those taken from their murderers, in the very recent date of death. But observe that after my explorations, having isolated in cones of paper the numerous Buprestids dug up, I have often left them over thirty-six hours before pinning them out. And yet, notwithstanding the dryness and great heat of July, I have always found the same flexibility in the joints. More than this, after that lapse of time, I have dissected several, and their visceræ were as perfectly preserved as if I had used my scalpel on the live insect. Now, long experience has taught me that even in a beetle of this size, when twelve hours have passed in summer after its death, the interior organs are either dried up or corrupted so that it is impossible to be sure of form or structure. There is some peculiarity about Buprestids put to death by the Cerceris which prevents corruption or desiccation for a week, or perhaps two. But what is this peculiarity?