The Return to the Nest 315 



Four successive alterations in the site ; changes 

 in the colour, the smell, the materials of the 

 outside of the home ; lastly, the pain of a 

 double wound : all had failed to baffle the 

 Wasp or even to make her waver as to the pre- 

 cise locality of her door. I had come to the end 

 of my stratagems and understood less than ever 

 how the insect, if it possess no special guide in 

 some faculty unknown to us, can find its way 

 when sight and scent are baffled by the artifices 

 which I have mentioned. 



A few days later, a lucky experiment re- 

 opened the question and allowed me to study 

 it under another aspect. In this case we un- 

 cover the Bembex' burrow all the way along, 

 without changing its appearance too much, an 

 operation made easier by the shallowness of the 

 burrow, its almost horizontal direction, and the 

 lack of consistency of the soil in which it is 

 dug. With this object we scrape the sand away 

 gradually with a knife. Thus deprived of its 

 roof from end to end, the underground dwelling 

 becomes an open trench, a conduit, straight or 

 curved, some eight inches long, open at the 

 spot where the entrance-door used to be and 

 finishing in a blind alley at the other end, where 

 the larva lies amid its victuals. 



Here is the home uncovered, in the bright 

 light, under the sun's rays. How will the 



