3o6 The Htinting IVasps 



a little light on this detail of animal psychology, 

 I made a series of experiments which I will now 

 describe.^ 



The first has for its subject the Great Cerceris, 

 who hunts Cleonus- weevils. About ten o'clock 

 in the morning I catch twelve females, all 

 belonging to the same colony and at work on 

 the same bank, busy digging burrows or victual- 

 ling them. Each prisoner is placed separately 

 in a little paper bag and the whole lot put in a 

 box. I walk about a mile and a half from the 

 site of the nests and then release my Cerceres, 

 first taking care, so that I may know them later, 

 to mark them with a white dot in the middle of 

 the thorax, using a straw dipped in indelible 

 paint. 



The Wasps fly only a few yards away, in every 

 direction, one here, another there ; they settle 

 on blades of grass, pass their fore-tarsi over their 

 eyes for a moment, as though dazzled by the 

 bright sunshine to which they have suddenly 

 been restored ; then they take flight, some 

 sooner, some later, and all, without hesitation, 

 make straight for the south, that is to say, for 

 home. Five hours later I return to the common 

 site of the nests. I am hardly there when I see 

 two of my Cerceres with white dots working at 



^ For other essays on the homing of insects, cf. The Mason- 

 bees: chaps, ii. to vi. — Translator's Note. 



