Notwithstanding these short interruptions, in a few hours the gallery is hollowed out and the Sphex appears on her threshold, to voice her triumph, and give the last touch to her labours by effacing some inequality, or carrying away some particles of earth, the objection to which only the eye of a Sphex could perceive. Of the many tribes of Sphegidæ visited by me, there is one of which I retain a specially lively recollection, on account of its singular installation upon the edge of a high road, where were little heaps of mud thrown up from side ditches by the cantonnier’s shovel. One, well sun-dried, had a conical shape like a sugar-loaf over fifteen inches high. The situation pleased the Sphegidæ, who had established a more populous community than I have ever again met with. From base to summit the cone of dried mud was pierced with burrows, giving it the appearance of a huge sponge. In every story was feverish animation, and a busy coming and going which brought to mind the scene in some great workshop when orders are pressing. Crickets were being dragged by the antennæ up the slopes of the conical city; there was storing of provisions in the larders of the cells; dust was pouring from galleries in process of construction; at intervals the grimy faces of the miners appeared at mouths of passages—there was a constant going and coming. Now and then, in a short interval of leisure, a Sphex ascended the top of the cone, perhaps to take a general and well-satisfied view from this belvedere. What a tempting sight!—one to make me long to carry away the entire city with its inhabitants. It was useless to try; the mass was too heavy. One cannot take up a village by the roots to plant it elsewhere.