The burrow of this wasp consists, we are told, “of a gently sloping entrance, extending for about six inches, when, ordinarily, a turn is made at right angles, and the excavation is continued for six or eight inches farther, ending in a globular cell an inch and a half in diameter. Frequently a number of branches leave the main burrow at about the same point, each terminating in a round cell.”[32] In each of these cells either one or two cicadas are deposited, and it would seem that when there are two, only one of these is provided with an egg, so that some of the wasp-larvæ have double rations. As the female _speciosus_ (her arguments, I think, would need to be specious to make one in love with a scheme in which she plays such a part) is very much larger than the male, it seems more than probable that the female eggs are laid in the chambers which contain two cicadæ, and the male ones in those which accommodate a single one only. If so, then these solitary wasps must have the same control over the sex of the eggs laid by them as the queen bee has. The social ones, should this be the case, no doubt have, too, but as the former must have preceded the latter, it would appear that this power has not been developed to meet the needs of a complex state of society—as has been generally supposed—but in accordance with much more simple conditions. The fact, however, if it be one, has not yet been demonstrated. “The delicate white, elongate egg of the wasp is laid under the middle leg of the cicada, and when it hatches, the larva protrudes its head and begins at once to draw nourishment from between the segments of its victim. The egg hatches in two or three days, and the larva attains full growth in a week, or a little more. It feeds entirely from the outside, and, when full-grown, spins a white silken cocoon (mixed with much earth, however), which is finished at the expiration of two days. It remains in the cocoon, unchanged, through the winter, transforming to pupa only in the following spring, and shortly before the appearance of the true insect. When the adult hatches it gnaws its way out of the cocoon, and so on up through the burrow to the surface of the ground, thus completing its life-round in a full year.”[32] How long, exactly, the life of the cicada lasts after it has entered into hospitable relations with the _speciosus_ I am unable to say.