240 Annals Entomological Society of America [Vol. IX, 



warm the earth, she may be seen scrambUng and wriggHng out 

 through this loose dirt; if perchance a shower has packed it 

 during the night she emerges looking not a little dishevelled 

 and excited from her exercise butting down her door. 



We have opened the nests at twilight and found the mother 

 sometimes in a hole only begun, sometimes almost finished, and 

 at other times already occupied by the larva and its food. 



One hole has continued to arouse our curiosity. We had 

 watched it for over a week, waiting for its permanent sealing. 

 Finally at twilight one evening, in company with Mr. E. A. 

 Schwarz, we broke open its temporary closure, and to our 

 amazement found six Bembex in the hole to spend the night. 

 In my astonishment I let four escape, but the other two were 

 females. I can hardly think this nest was for sleeping quarters 

 exclusively, for we have never found another like it, and only 

 the day before I had seen a female enter and depart several 

 times as if it were a normal domicile. Is it possible that this 

 may be an example of the beginning of the gregarious or social 

 habit of wasps? 



Philanthus sp. [S. A. Rohwerj. 



In a Kansas wheatfield on August 14, at 6 :30 in the evening, 

 a Philanthus was found very artfully concealed among the long 

 beards of a head of wheat which had been missed by the har- 

 vester and had by this time turned dark grayish-brown. 



Astata pygidialis Fox [S. A. Rohwer]. 



At the end of a dreary August day we found an open hole in 

 our wasp-field which had not been there that morning. There 

 was a little mound of earth outside, but no pretense of closing 

 the hole. It ran down diagonally for about an inch and a half, 

 and snug inside was the owner, A. pygidialis. It remains a 

 mystery where this little proprietress spends her nights when 

 her burrow is finished and sealed, or when she has no hole at all. 



Rynchium dorsale Fabr. [S. A. Rohwerj. 



On a July evening just before twilight I found the hole of a 

 R. dorsale, with its occupant therein ready for the night. I 

 removed it with the forceps but when I tried to tuck it back 

 in its nest it flew away. 



