st by the same huntress was all that I was able to
see during my long vigils. Feeding from day to day involves this
deliberation. Once the family is supplied with a sufficient ration for
the moment, the mother suspends her hunting-trips until further need
arises and occupies herself with mining-work in her underground house.
Cells are dug; I see the rubbish gradually pushed up to the surface.
Beyond this there is not a sign of activity; it is as though the burrow
were deserted.

The inspection of the site is no easy matter. The shaft descends to
a depth of nearly three feet in a compact soil, either vertically or
horizontally. The spade and pick, wielded by stronger but less expert
hands than mine, are indispensable, for which reason the process of
excavation is far from satisfying me fully. At the end of this long
tunnel, which the straw which I use for sounding despairs of ever
reaching, the cells are at last encountered, oval cavities with a
horizontal major axis. Their number and general arrangement escape me.

Some of them already contain the cocoon, which is slender and
semitransparent, like those of the Cerceris, and, like them, suggests
the shape of certain homoeopathic phials, with oval bellies surmounted
by a tapering neck. The cocoon is fastened to the end of the cell by
the tip of this neck, which is darkened and hardened by the larva's
excrement; it has no other support. It looks like a short club fixed by
the end of the handle along the horizontal axis of the nest. Other cells
contain the larva in a more or less advanced stage. The grub is munching
the last morsel served to it, with the scraps of the victuals already
consumed lying around it. Others lastly show me a Bee, one only, still
untouched and bearing an egg laid on her breast. This is the first
partial ration; the others will come as and when the grub grows larger.
My anticipations are thus confirmed: following the example of the
Bembeces, the Fly-killers, the Philanthus, the Bee-killer, lays her egg
on the first piece warehoused and at intervals adds to her nurselings'
repast.

The problem of the dead game is solved. There remains this other
problem, one of incomparable interest: why are the Bees robbed of their
honey before being served to the larvae? I have said and I say again
that the killing and squeezing cannot be explained and excused simply by
reference to the Philanthus' love of gormandizing. Robbing the worker
of her booty is nothing