other Hymenoptera. I will give some of the more striking of these observations. When caught digging, the Languedocian Sphex is always alone, sometimes at the bottom of a dusty recess left by a stone that has dropped out of an old wall, sometimes ensconced in the shelter formed by a flat, projecting bit of sandstone, a shelter much sought after by the fierce Eyed Lizard to serve as an entrance-hall to his lair. The sun beats full upon it; it is an oven. The soil, consisting of old dust that has fallen little by little from the roof, is very easy to dig. The cell is soon scooped out with the mandibles, those pincers which are also used for digging, and the tarsi, which serve as rubbish-rakes. Then the miner flies off, but with a slow flight and no sudden display of wing-power, a manifest sign that the insect is not contemplating a distant expedition. We can easily follow it with our eyes and perceive the spot where it alights, usually ten or twelve yards away. At other times it decides to walk. It goes off and makes hurriedly for a spot where we will have the indiscretion to follow it, for our presence does not trouble it at all. On reaching its destination, either on foot or on the wing, it looks round for some time, as we gather from its undecided attitude and its journeys hither and thither. It looks round; at last it finds or rather retrieves something. The object recovered is an Ephippiger, half-paralysed, but still moving her tarsi, antennæ and ovipositor. She is a victim which the Sphex certainly stabbed not long ago with a few stings. After the operation the Wasp left her prey, an embarrassing burden amid the suspense of house-hunting; she abandoned it perhaps on the very spot where she captured it, contenting herself with making it more or less conspicuous by placing it on some grass-tuft, in order to find it more easily later; and, trusting to her good memory to return presently to the spot where the booty lies, she set out to explore the neighbourhood with the object of finding a suitable site and there digging a burrow. Once the home was ready, she came back to her prize, which she found again without much hesitation, and she now prepares to lug it home. She bestrides the victim, seizes one or both of the antennæ, and off she goes, tugging and dragging with all the strength of her loins and jaws.