The Hunting Wasps 



there were constant exits and constant en- 

 trances; and now and again a Sphex, in her 

 brief intervals of leisure, would climb to the 

 top of the cone, perhaps to cast a look of 

 satisfaction from this belvedere over the 

 works in general. What a spectacle to 

 tempt me, to make me long to carry the 

 whole city and its inhabitants away with me ! 

 It was useless even to try: the mass was too 

 heavy. One cannot root up a village from 

 its foundations to transplant it elsewhere. 



We will return therefore to the Sphex- 

 wasps working on level ground, in ordinary 

 soil, as happens in by far the greater num- 

 ber of cases. As soon as the burrow is dug, 

 the chase begins. Let us profit by the 

 Wasp's distant excursions in search of her 

 game and examine the dwelling. The usual 

 site of a Sphex colony is, as I said, level 

 ground. Nevertheless, the soil is not so 

 smooth but that we find a few little mounds 

 crowned with a tuft of grass or wormwood, 

 a few cracks consolidated by the scanty roots 

 of the vegetation that covers them. It is 

 in the sides of these furrows that the Sphex 

 builds her dwelling. The gallery consists 

 first of a horizontal portion, two or three 

 inches long and serving as an approach to 

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