The operation so far was remarkable enough, but the next procedure was more so. When she had heaped up the dirt to her satisfaction, she again flew away and immediately returned with a smaller pebble, perhaps an eighth of an inch in diameter, and then standing more nearly erect, with the front feet folded beneath her, she pressed down the dust all over and about the opening, smoothing off the surface, and accompanying the action with a peculiar rasping sound. After all this was done, and she spent several minutes each time in thus stamping the earth so that only a keen eye could detect any abrasion of the surface, she laid aside the little pebble and flew away to be gone some minutes. Soon, however, she comes back with a heavy flight, scarcely able to sustain the soft green larva, as long as herself, that she brings. The larva is laid upon the ground, a little to one side, when, going to the spot where she had industriously labored, by a few, rapid strokes she throws out the dust and withdraws the stone cover, laying it aside. Next, the larva is dragged down the hole, where the wasp remains for a few minutes, afterwards returning and closing up the entrance precisely as before. This, we thought, was the end, and supposed that the wasp would now be off about her other affairs, but not so; soon she returns with another larva, precisely like the first, and the whole operation is again repeated. And not only the second time, but again and again, till four or five of the larvæ have been stored up for the sustainment of her future offspring. Once, while a wasp had gone down the hole with a larva, my friend quietly removed the door stone that she had placed by the entrance. Returning, she looked about for her door, but not finding it, apparently mistrusted the honesty of a neighbor, which had just descended, leaving her own door temptingly near. She purloined this pebble and was making off with it, when the rightful owner appeared and gave chase, compelling her to relinquish it. The things that struck us as most remarkable were the unerring judgment in the selection of a pebble of precisely the right size to fit the entrance, and the use of the small pebble in smoothing down and packing the soil over the opening, together with the instinct that taught them to remove every evidence that the earth had been disturbed. Since the Ammophiles of our species make their nests first and then do their hunting it follows that they must sometimes carry their prey for a considerable distance. The most ambitious attempt of this kind that we ever witnessed was made by gracilis.