some lost cue or secret. Every moment or two they would pause, and by some invisible means make the low, purring sound referred to. Dr. J. A. Alien says the common turtle, or land tortoise, also has a note,--a loud, shrill, piping sound. It may yet be discovered that there is no silent creature in nature. THE SAND HORNET I turned another (to me) new page in natural history, when, during the past season, I made the acquaintance of the sand wasp or hornet. From boyhood I had known the black hornet, with his large paper nest, and the spiteful yellow-jacket, with his lesser domicile, and had cherished proper contempt for the various indolent wasps. But the sand hornet was a new bird,--in fact, the harpy eagle among insects,--and he made an impression. While walking along the road about midsummer, I noticed working in the towpath, where the ground was rather inclined to be dry and sandy, a large yellow hornet-like insect. It made a hole the size of one's little finger in the hard, gravelly path beside the roadbed. When disturbed, it alighted on the dirt and sand in the middle of the road. I had noticed in my walks some small bullet-like holes in the field that had piqued my curiosity, and I determined to keep an eye on these insects of the roadside. I explored their holes, and found them quite shallow, and no mystery at the bottom of them. One morning in the latter part of July, walking that way, I was quickly attracted by the sight of a row of little mounds of fine, freshly dug earth resting upon the grass beside the road, a foot or more beneath the path. "What is this?" I said. "Mice, or squirrels, or snakes," said my neighbor. But I connected it at once with the strange insect I had seen. Neither mice nor squirrels work like that, and snakes do not dig. Above each mound of earth was a hole the size of one's largest finger, leading into the bank. While speculating about the phenomenon, I saw one of the large yellow hornets I had observed quickly enter one of the holes. That settled the query. While spade and hoe were being brought to dig him out, another hornet appeared, heavy-laden with some prey, and flew humming up and down and around the place where I was standing. I withdrew a little, when he quickly alighted upon one of the mounds of earth, and I saw him carrying into his den no less an insect than the cicada or harvest-fly. Then another came, and after coursing up and down a few times, disturbed by my presence, alighted upon a tree, with his quarry, to rest. The black hornet will capture a fly, or a small butterfly, and, after breaking and dismembering it, will take it to his nest; but here was this hornet carrying an insect much larger than himself, and flying with ease and swiftness. It was as if a hawk should carry a hen, or an eagle a turkey. I at once proceeded to dig for one of the hornets, and, after following his hole about three feet under the footpath and to