134 BuUctin Wisconsin yatural History Society. [Vol. 6. Xos. 3-4. 
Dr. Graenicher exhibited specimens of a Yellow Flax, Linum sul- 
catum, new to the flora of the county. He also reported having found 
Aster Drumniondi blooming on Jnly 1st, which from the condition of 
the flowers, he judged must have come out about June 25th, or about 
a month earlier than usual. 
The meeting then adjourned. 
Milwaukee, August 13, 1908. 
]\reeting of the. combined sections. 
Vice-president Ward in the chair and ten persons present. 
Dr. Geo. P. Earth exhibited plaster casts of wasps nests he had made 
recently at Cedar Lake, Wis., and described the habits of some of the 
fossorial species shown. Anacrahro oceUatus which builds at the foot 
of a tuft of grass, a weed, stone, etc. in sand banks, preferably with 
sparse vegetation is unique in its digging methods. It flies along a 
sand bank in short arcs so as to strike the bank every few inches, and 
bit^e the ground, as if testing its workable qualitj'. TSTien it has found 
a suitable place, it sets to work, not in the usual way by picking out 
the earth g-rains, but by picking them up one at a time and fl^-ing with 
the load clutched between the forelegs and the depressed head to drop 
the load some ten inches away. Thus there is often a sand trail of 
such dropped particles leading towards the nest. It goes into its hole 
by diving into it on the wing, but usually has to make a few prelimi- 
nary jerky dives as if to locate the hole it seeks to enter. Three casts 
of its irreg-ular holes were shown also one cast of a hole of Bonhec- 
spinolce whose general direction of the nest is 45° from the vertical; 
one of the great Golden Digger, Proterosphex ichneumonea, with its 
several cells leading off at right angles at or near the base of the 
main passage; and one of Philanth u s, boring enters the bank 
directly. 
Iclineumonea stores its nest with as many as 12 grasshoppers, 
in amplification of Dr. Peckham's published accounts. The finest 
dental plaster in tv^^ce its bulk of water was used these casts, and 
poured into holes of nests with a small bottle fitted with glass tubes 
like the chemist's wash bottle. 
^Ir. "Ward exhibited some vegetable balls, probablj' the alga 
Pithophora rounded like fiattened spheres, capsules and egg-shapes, 
formed apparently b}- Avave action at Fox Lake, Wisconsin. 
^Ir. Burrill read a lecture entitled "The Home ^Making Work of 
the Federal Government," recently written by !Mr. C. J. Blanchard of 
the V. S. Eeclamation ser\-ice and illustrated by about one hundred 
