In our next experiment we used a larger glass, thinking that with more space we might see malaxation. The instant that the wasp was introduced she grasped the bee with one rapid powerful motion, and stung it just under the neck as before. Then holding it with the second legs she began to fly about in the glass. We now introduced another bee, whereupon the first one was relinquished, and the second was treated in exactly the same way. The stinging was the beginning and the end of the operation, and when we released her she at once took the bee into the nest. There was no malaxation outside, and certainly there was none within, as was shown by the rapidity with which the wasps issued from the nest after storing the bees. We were successful in getting the wasps to sting only when we tried the experiment with those that were hunting. When those that had not yet begun to store their nests were put into the glass they paid no attention to the bees. The victim of the sting of punctatus is killed at once. Life is extinct from the instant that the stroke is given. This is true also of the honey–bee that is the victim of Fabre’s Philanthus apivorus; but the explanation that he gives of the action of his wasp in thus dealing sudden death instead of paralyzing its foe—that the honey must be sucked out of the bee before it can be safely used as food for the larva—does not hold good in our case, since the honey that Halictus carries to mix with the pollen upon which her offspring are fed, is not removed. [Illustration: NEST OF PHILANTHUS PUNCTATUS A–B, 3½ inches; B–C, 5 inches; C–D, 14 inches; D–E, 8 inches] As time went on we found on the island two other Philanthus colonies, although that is rather too large a word to apply to them, since one consisted of four nests and the other of only two. When we came to excavate the nests of this species we were greatly astonished at the length of the gallery, and not until then did we properly appreciate the industry of these little wasps. It is no small undertaking to follow one of their tunnels for twenty–two inches, even when, as in this case, the greater part of it is parallel to the surface of the ground. We did not find distinct pockets, as the soil was very crumbly and fell in as we worked, but we came upon clumps of bees an inch or so to one side of the gallery and about three inches apart, with larvæ in different stages of development. In one nest we found twenty–six bees in two clumps, some of them half–eaten, and some of them fresh, but all quite dead. We have no doubt that punctatus completely provisions one pocket and closes the opening from it into the gallery, before she starts another, making a series of six or eight independent cells. The provision for one larva is probably twelve or fourteen bees, the capture of which, in good weather, would be a fair day’s work.