THE GREAT GOLDEN DIGGER. 39 



nearly at an end, but in this we were mistaken. Wlien we re- 

 turned to the garden about half an hour after we had done the 

 deed, we heard her loud and anxious humming from a distance. 

 She was searching far and near for her treasure house, return- 

 ing everj few minutes to the light spot, although the uptui'ned 

 earth had entirely changed its appearance. She seemed un- 

 able to believe her eyes, and her persistent refusal to accept the 

 fact that her nest had been destroyed was pathetic. She staid 

 about the garden all through the day, and made so many visits 

 to us, getting under our umbrellas and thrusting her tremen- 

 dous personality into our very faces, that we wondered if she 

 were trying to question us as to the whereabouts of her property. 



Dr. Packard describes Sphew icJineumonea as nesting in 

 gravelly walks, where it digs to a depth of from four to six 

 inches, using its jaws and fore legs to do the excavating. While 

 the wasps that he observed completed the hole in half an hour, 

 ours was actually at work a little over four hours. Her nest, 

 as is shown in the drawing (PI. XL, fig. 1), measured seven 

 and one-half inches to the beginning of the pocket, which was 

 three-quarters of an inch wide by one and one-half inches long. 

 The yellow-winged Sphex, a native of Prance, was found, by 

 Fabre to take several hours to make her nest, working in hard 

 ground, while another species, also studied by this distinguished 

 observer, dug in soft earth, either in the ground or in the 

 accumulations on the roofs of buildings, and completed her 

 work in fifteen minutes at the most. These variations in the 

 habits of closely related species should be carefully studied in 

 any attempt toward an explanation of their instincts, 



Pabre's account of the genus Sphex, as it appears in Prance, 

 is most interesting. He says that the yellow-winged species, 

 living in colonies, first digs her nest and then secures her cricket, 

 which is brought, on the wing, to the neighborhood of the bur- 

 row, the last part of the journey being accomplished on foot. 

 The cricket is dragged by one of the antennae and is not left un- 

 til the nest is reached. It is then placed so that the antennae 



