The flat stone is not enough to mislead our wide-awake friend; we must find something better. To cut things short, I do not allow the Bembex to continue her excavations, which, I can see, will soon prove successful; I drive her off with my handkerchief. The fairly long absence of the frightened insect will give me time to prepare my snares at leisure. What materials shall I employ now? In these improvised experiments we must know how to turn everything to use. Not far off, on the high-road, are the fresh droppings of some beast of burden. The very thing! The droppings are collected, broken up, crumbled and then spread in a layer at least an inch thick on the threshold of the burrow and all around, covering about a quarter of a square yard. This certainly is a house-front the like of which no Bembex ever knew. The colouring, the nature of the materials, the stercoral effluvia all combine to mystify the Wasp. Will she take all this—that expanse of manure, that dung—for the front of her door? Why, yes: here she comes! She inspects the unwonted condition of the place from above and settles in the middle of the layer, just opposite the entrance. She digs, makes a hole through the stringy mass and reaches the sand, where she at once finds the orifice of the passage. I stop her and drive her away a second time. Is not the precision with which the Wasp alights just in front of her door, though this be masked in a way so new to her, a proof that sight and memory are not her only guide? What else can there be? Could it be scent? It is very doubtful, for the emanations from the droppings have not been able to baffle the insect’s perspicacity. Still, let us try a different smell. I happen to have on me, as part of my entomological luggage, a small phial of ether. I sweep away the sheet of manure and replace it by a blanket of moss, not very thick, but spreading to a considerable distance; and I pour the contents of my phial on it as soon as I see the Bembex arrive. The ethereal fumes, at first too strong, keep the Wasp away, but only for a moment. Then she alights on the moss, which still exhales a very perceptible smell of ether, passes through the obstacle and makes her way indoors. The ethereal effluvia put her out no more than did the stercoral effluvia. Something surer than scent tells her where her nest lies.