A SAND QUARRY IN WINTER. 37 



bottom of the quarry is a large heap of mud, composed 

 of the soil and sand which have been washed down. 

 Indeed, the view of the quarry showed admirably, on 

 a small scale, how vast a work water does in changing 

 the face of the earth. The strangest point about this 

 channelled surface was the formation of numerous 

 stalactites and stalagmites. A stalactite of sand seems 

 rather a strange thing, but there they are and plenty 

 of them. They are, of course, but small, only a few 

 inches in length; but size goes for very little in 

 Nature, and, when compared with the area of the whole 

 globe, there is not very much difference between six 

 inches and six feet. They fall to pieces at the slightest 

 touch of the finger, and yet remain unhurt while the 

 tempestuous wind is roaring above, and the air is full 

 of heavy rain, whirling leaves, and bits of dry branches. 



A portion of the eastern face has escaped rather 

 better than the rest, and to that I directed my atten- 

 tion. It was literally covered with burrows, varying 

 in size from eighteen inches to the eighth of an inch 

 in diameter. The small burrows are evidently owing 

 to the insects which were so plentiful in the summer. 

 Chief among them were the Kentish bee (Andrena 

 pilipes), a very local insect, hardly to be found in any 

 other county of England except that from which it 

 takes its name ; the Sand-wasps (Crabro and Odynerus), 

 arid the lovely Euby-tail flies (Chrysis\ about all of 

 whom we shall presently learn something. 



The largest is that of a fox, and a very clever con- 



