These visits are sometimes followed by grievous accidents. The victim, rashly abandoned on hilly ground, rolls to the bottom of the slope; and the Sphex on her return, no longer finding it where she left it, is obliged to seek for it, sometimes fruitlessly. If she find it, she must renew a toilsome climb, which does not prevent her from once more abandoning her booty on the same unlucky declivity. Of these repeated visits to the mouth of the shaft, the first can be very logically explained. The Wasp, before arriving with her heavy burden, inquires whether the entrance to the home be really clear, whether nothing will hinder her from bringing in her game. But, once this first reconnaissance is made, what can be the use of the rest, following one after the other, at close intervals? Is the Sphex so volatile in her ideas that she forgets the visit which she has just paid and runs afresh to the burrow a moment later, only to forget this new inspection also and to start doing the same thing over and over again? That would be a memory with very fleeting recollections, whence the impression vanished almost as soon as it was produced. Let us not linger too long on this obscure point. At last the game is brought to the brink of the shaft, with its antennæ hanging down the hole. We now again see, faithfully imitated, the method employed in the like case by the Yellow-winged Sphex and also, but under less striking conditions, by the Languedocian Sphex. The Wasp enters alone, inspects the interior, reappears at the entrance, lays hold of the antennæ and drags the Locust down. While the Locust-huntress was making her examination of the home, I have pushed her prize a little farther back; and I obtained results similar in all respects to those which the Cricket-huntress gave me. Each Sphex displays the same obstinacy in diving down her burrow before dragging in the prey. Let us recall here that the Yellow-winged Sphex does not always allow herself to be caught by this trick of pulling away her Cricket. There are picked tribes, strong-minded families which, after a few disappointments, see through the experimenter’s wiles and know how to baffle them. But these revolutionaries, fit subjects for progress, are the minority; the remainder, mulish conservatives clinging to the old manners and customs, are the majority, the crowd. I am unable to say whether the Locust-huntress also varies in ingenuity according to the district which she hails from.