In five minutes the wasp returned, and, with the air of feeling that everything was right, picked up her burden and carried it laboriously through the remaining bushes and then through the grassy space that edged the garden, as far as the rail fence which separated this part of the grounds from the woods. Without a pause she climbed on to this fence to the height of the second rail, passed through, and flew down on the further side. Here she paused a moment, perhaps to take breath, and we looked at each other in some dismay. Whither was she leading us? We had now been following her for over an hour, and she looked equal to as much again as she started off once more, rapidly this time, for the grass was short here and the traveling was easy. Soon, however, it became evident that things were going wrong, although we could not determine what was the matter. The caterpillar was laid down while the wasp absented herself for six minutes. She returned and carried it for fifteen minutes, and then left it for half an hour. Once more she came back, and carried it for ten minutes, and then she flew away. It was now four o’clock, and we had been following her since two. We watched over the caterpillar for an hour longer, but saw no more of the wasp. Did she become discouraged at the magnitude of her task? It would have been a thousand times easier for her to have dug her nest close by the place of capture, but perhaps she had one larva already stored with her egg upon it. The caterpillar was carried two hundred and sixty–one feet while we watched her, with an unknown distance at each end to complete the line between the place of capture and the nest. She could scarcely have lost her way, since at every return she proceeded on her journey in one general direction without any hesitation. It seems probable then that she had hunted too far afield, and did not realize, when she started with her booty, what an undertaking it would be to carry it to the nest. We once saw A. vulgaris have a similar experience. She was running along with a small green caterpillar, but became discouraged either at the difficulty of finding her nest, or at the distance she had to cover. She would carry the caterpillar a little way, drop it, circle about a while, and then pick it up again; but finally she gave up the whole undertaking and flew away.