What I have seen and often seen is the pebbly nest, with the larva inside and the provisions partly consumed. To continue the rearing at home and follow my charge's progress from day to day was a business which I could not resist; besides, as far as I was able to see, it was easily managed. I had had some practice in this foster-father's trade; my association with the Bembex, the Ammophila, the Sphex (three species of Digger-wasps.--Translator's Note.) and many others had turned me into a passable insect-rearer. I was no novice in the art of dividing an old pen-box into compartments in which I laid a bed of sand and, on this bed, the larva and her provisions delicately removed from the maternal cell. Success was almost certain at each attempt: I used to watch the larvae at their meals, I saw my nurselings grow up and spin their cocoons. Relying upon the experience thus gained, I reckoned upon success in raising my Eumenes. The results, however, in no way answered to my expectations. All my endeavours failed; and the larva allowed itself to die a piteous death without touching its provisions. I ascribed my reverse to this, that and the other cause: perhaps I had injured the frail grub when demolishing the fortress; a splinter of masonry had bruised it when I forced open the hard dome with my knife; a too sudden exposure to the sun had surprised it when I withdrew it from the darkness of its cell; the open air might have dried up its moisture. I did the best I could to remedy all these probable reasons of failure. I went to work with every possible caution in breaking open the home; I cast the shadow of my body over the nest, to save the grub from sunstroke; I at once transferred larva and provisions into a glass tube and placed this tube in a box which I carried in my hand, to minimize the jolting on the journey. Nothing was of avail: the larva, when taken from its dwelling, always allowed itself to pine away. For a long time I persisted in explaining my want of success by the difficulties attending the removal. Eumenes Amedei's cell is a strong casket which cannot be forced without sustaining a shock; and the demolition of a work of this kind entails such varied accidents that we are always liable to think that the worm has been bruised by the wreckage. As for carrying home the nest intact on its support, with a view to opening it with greater care than is permitted by a rough-and-ready operation in the fields, that is out of the question: the nest nearly always stands on an immovable rock or on some big stone forming part of a wall. If I failed in my attempts at rearing, it was because the larva had suffered when I was breaking up her house. The reason seemed a good one; and I let it go at that.