THE BUO-HUNTERS. 93 



exactly the insouciant air of a fly. It aliglited near a weed, 

 rose, circled about a little, came back to tbe same place, rose 

 again, and — no, it was no fly, — dropped down into a tiny bole, 

 bidden from above by a leaf. It was a wasp, and a very pretty 

 one, with tbe abdomen soft, brigbt red, dark cepbalotborax and 

 gauzy wings. In a few minutes tbe little creature came creep- 

 ing out and began to circle around tbe place but sbe evidently 

 found it difficult to tear berself away from ber borne. Again 

 and again sbe aligbted near by, and finally sbe came close to tbe 

 opening and, flattening ber body so tbat sbe almost lay on tbe 

 ground, gazed into it in a contented and contemplative manner. 

 After a time sbe flew away. Sbe was gone for ten minutes and 

 wben sbe came back we saw tbat sbe was carrying sometbing in 

 her mandibles. Sbe did not go directly to tbe nest but aligbted 

 on a weed. After a moment sbe rose and circled about and 

 tben aligbted again, tbis time on tbe ground. After sbe bad 

 repeated these actions several times she entered the nest, de- 

 posited her burden and almost immediately came out again. As 

 before, some minutes were spent in circling about the spot be- 

 fore she flew away. 



For two hours we sat by tbe nest watching ber as she pur- 

 sued the peculiarly even tenor of her way. Sbe hesitated, de- 

 layed, and circled about whenever she left home and whenever 

 she returned. Once on coming back to tbe nest, which was en- 

 tered by a slightly oblique gallery, she walked in over the upper 

 edge so that her back was down. On her return from her 

 fourth journey we caught her in a bottle and found that sbe 

 was carrying a small bomopterous insect, which she held by tbe 

 bead, venter up. We shook the bottle but she would not drop 

 it, and when released she resumed the business of the day with 

 perfect self-possession. Twice on going in, she pushed up some 

 earth, thus closing the hole behind her. 



In the two hours that we watched her sbe made ten journeys. 

 The stay within tbe nest was never more than two minutes but 

 often as much more time was spent in going in and in getting 

 away. "We kept a record of the hours at which she returned 



