("1e%) 
insect resembling a dead leaf as by this moth, and yet when 
it had been set, and was in the Hope Museum, Prof. Poulton 
was surprised to hear how much like a leaf it had been when 
alive. 
Carabus violaceus, L., attacked and forsaken by an enemy.— 
This case was noted in “ The Countryside ” for June 24, 1905, 
but the date of the observation was previous to that, probably 
by several years. 
I picked up, in the University Parks, at Oxford, a specimen 
of this beetle which had been badly mauled. The head had 
been removed at the junction with the thorax, and all the legs, 
except the right posterior one, had been removed at the base. 
The exception still had the femur attached to the body. The 
stumps of the legs were being vigorously moved. I took the 
specimen home, and it lived for three weeks and three days 
from the date on which I found it, being able to move the leg 
stumps up to the end of that time. 
If this injury was due to an enemy, and not to mischief by 
some child, it illustrates remarkably the distastefulness of this 
beetle, which had been forsaken after many repeated tastings, 
and also the vitality which is such a characteristic feature of 
protected insects. 
Sphegidae and Pompilidae, a remarkable difference in the 
methods adopted for fillmg up their burrows.—The very first 
Fossors which I observed were a Sphegid, Ammophila hirsuta 
(viatica, Sm.), Scop., and a Pompilid, Pompilus viaticus, 
L., at Bordighera on the Italian Riviera, in the early 
spring of 1899. The point I wish to emphasise is this: after 
the burrow has been stocked it has to be filled up. When it 
was necessary to ram the loose earth down, the Sphegid used 
its head; holding on to the sides of the burrow with all its 
legs it launched itself down against the loose earth, using the 
broad flat anterior surface of the head as a battering ram. 
The Pompilid, on the other hand, sat quietly over the hole, 
and rammed the loose earth down with the end of its abdomen. 
Since this remarkable difference was only seen in a single 
specimen of each, I was much interested when out in Uganda 
to be able to confirm it by observations on other species. 
Sphex marginatus, Smith, uses its head as does the other species 
