464 INSECTS ABROAD. 



hottest pai't of Llie day, briskly flying to and fro. It is a species 

 of Sphex, closely allied to >S'. ichneumonea, Liit with the abdomen 

 wholly rufous. On closer examination we discover numerous 

 holes entering diagonally into the dry and dusty ground, into 

 which some of these bright-coloured flies are crawling, and from 

 which others are emerging. 



" From some of the holes proceeds a shrill, but intermitted, 

 buzzing ; and if we watch one of these, w^e perceive the Sphex at 

 work therein. .At first we cannot see what she is doing, for she 

 crawls in head foremost, and in a second or two comes out tail 

 foremost, recedes a few inches, and then advances again, again 

 emerges in the same manner, and again enters; and continues thus 

 to crawl backward and forward with bustling activity, and with 

 much flirting of the purple wings. She is almost white with dust, 

 and is evidently very busy, if we can but comprehend her motions. 



'' On stooping down and bringing our face very near the scene 

 of labour, we discover, by narrow watching, that she is digging 

 the hole ; and hence the negro children have given her the ap- 

 propriate title of gravedigger. Every time that she comes forth, 

 she brings a load of the powdery earth, much larger than her 

 head, tightly held between the shanks of her two fore-feet, her 

 breast, and her chin, and this she drops an inch or two from the 

 cave's mouth. Sometimes she brings a stone still larger, and 

 this is grasped in the jaws, and dragged to tlie distance of four 

 or five inches, for fear it should roll in again. I have seen her 

 bring two stones together, one grasped beneath the chin, the 

 other in the jaws. Each time she has dropped the load, she 

 never fails, as she advances, to keep the road clear by scraping 

 with the fore shanks, throwing the dust behind her. But for 

 this, the earth brought out would soon accumulate in a heap, and 

 roll back. If a dry leaf or small stick happen to drop against 

 the mouth of the hole, she seizes it with her curved jaws and 

 carries it to a safe distance. 



"I observed one filling up a hole. No doubt she had de- 

 posited her Qgg at the bottom, and stored sufticient provision 

 (caterpillars or spiders, disabled but not killed, according to the 

 custom of these interesting insects) to last the young grub, when 

 hatched, until its maturity, ' baud ignara ac non incauta futuri.' 

 With her tail towards the hole, she scraped back a little heap of 

 vlust; then turned, and with her head moved it about, that it 



