142 The Hunting Wasps 



those pincers which are also used for digging, 

 and the tarsi, which serve as rubbish-rakes. 

 Then the miner flies off, but with a slow flight 

 and no sudden display of wmg-power, a manifest 

 sign that the insect is not contemplating a 

 distant expedition. We can easily follow it 

 with our eyes and perceive the spot where it 

 alights, usually ten or twelve yards away. 

 At other times it decides to walk. It goes off 

 and makes hurriedly for a spot where we will 

 have the indiscretion to follow it, for our 

 presence does not trouble it at all. On reaching 

 its destination, either on foot or on the wing, 

 it looks round for some time, as we gather from 

 its undecided attitude and its journeys hither 

 and thither. It looks round ; at last it finds 

 or rather retrieves something. The object re- 

 covered is an Ephippiger, half-paralysed, but 

 still moving her tarsi, antennae and ovipositor. 

 She is a victim which the Sphex certainly 

 stabbed not long ago with a few stings. After 

 the operation the Wasp left her prey, an em- 

 barrassing burden amid the suspense of house- 

 hunting ; she abandoned it perhaps on the 

 very spot where she captured it, contenting her- 

 self with making it more or less conspicuous by 

 placing it on some grass-tuft, in order to find 

 it more easily later ; and, trusting to her good 

 memory to return presently to the spot where 



