( a ) 
alluded to. Pompilus bretoni, Gués., however, employs its 
abdomen like Pompilus viaticus, and a species of Salius did the 
same. The Salius, however, showed another difference. All the 
other fossors which I have seen at work filled up the burrow 
by standing an inch or so away and scratching a shower of sand 
backwards in a continuous stream beneath the body; varying 
this by carrying small stones, etc., in their mandibles and 
ramming them in. Salius, however, adopted a much lazier 
method. It stood with its abdomen inside the burrow, and 
head and fore-legs projecting outwards, and simply reached 
to it armfuls of the loose earth with its front limbs, which was 
then rammed down with the end of the abdomen as indicated. 
It would be extremely interesting to know if other observers 
have noted this striking difference between Pompilids and 
Sphegids in methods of doing the same thing. 
On one occasion, when watching Ammophila hirsuta (Scop.) 
at work at Bordighera in 1899, I by chance observed a very 
remarkable fact which is I believe unique. This species stores 
up a single caterpillar of species of Noctuidae, which it finds 
among the bases of grass stems in March when it hunts. I 
repeatedly saw it bringing to, and burying in its hole, these 
caterpillars. On one occasion when the egg had been laid 
as usual upon the 6th segment and the wasp was filling up the 
hole I frightened it away and brought out the larva, leaving 
it at the mouth of the hole. When the wasp came back and 
found the larva lying there it examined it and seemed puzzled, 
and then deliberately sucked the contents of the egg dry (I 
watched it shrivel !) and deposited another in its place. 
This is a curious fact and suggests that the wasp’s instinct 
led it to destroy the egg, which might well have been that of 
a species of indirect parasite whose larva would devour the 
food stored up for the wasp larva. I do not for one moment 
suggest that the wasp recognised the egg as such, otherwise 
it might equally well have known that it was its own egg! 
A VERY RARE ANnT.—Mr. DonistHorrE exhibited 33, 
winged 99 and a dealated 2 and ¥ 8 of Solenopsis fugazx, Latr., 
taken at Blackgang, Isle of Wight, on Aug. 26, 1913. He 
mentioned that the colony was a very large one, and was not 
in connection with a nest of any other ant. The late Mr. Dale 
