On a bright, sunny day it is wonderful to watch the different operations of these industrious miners. Some patiently remove with their mandibles a few bits of gravel from the bottom of the pit and push the heavy mass outside; others, scraping the walls of the corridor with the sharp rakes of their tarsi, collect a heap of rubbish which they sweep out backwards and send streaming down the sides of the slopes in a long thread of dust. It was these periodical billows of sand discharged from the galleries in process of building that betrayed the presence of my first Cerceres to me and enabled me to discover their nests. Others, either because they are tired or because they have finished their hard task, seem to rest and polish their antennæ and wings under the natural eaves that most frequently protect their dwelling; or else they remain motionless at the mouth of the hole, merely showing their wide, square faces, striped black and yellow. Others, lastly, flit gravely humming on the neighbouring kermes-oak-bushes, where the males, always on the watch near the burrows in course of construction, are not slow to join them. Couples form, often disturbed by the arrival of a second male, who strives to supplant the happy possessor. The humming becomes threatening, brawls take place and often the two males roll in the dust until one of them acknowledges the superiority of his rival. Near by, the female awaits the outcome of the struggle with indifference; she finally accepts the male whom the chances of the contest bestow upon her; and the couple fly out of sight in search of peace and quiet on some distant brushwood. Here the part played by the males ends. Only half the size of the females and nearly as numerous, they prowl all around the burrows, but never enter and never take part in the laborious mining operations nor in the perhaps even more difficult hunting expeditions by means of which the cells are to be stocked.