completely filling up the exit-hole. If the Wasp is entering the ground,
the digging-operations, undertaken at an arbitrary point, quickly yield a
cavity in which the Scolia disappears, separated from the surface by the
whole track of shifted material.

I can easily trace her passage through the thickness of the soil by certain
long, winding cylinders, formed of loose materials in the midst of compact
and stable earth. These cylinders are numerous; they sometimes run to a
depth of twenty inches; they extend in all directions, fairly often
crossing one another. Not one of them ever exhibits so much as a suspicion
of an open gallery. They are obviously not permanent ways of communication
with the outer world, but hunting-trails which the insect has followed
once, without going back to them. What was the Wasp seeking when she
riddled the soil with these tunnels which are now full of running sands? No
doubt the food for her family, the larva of which I possess the empty skin,
now an unrecognizable shred.

I begin to see a little light: the Scoliae are underground workers. I
already expected as much, having before now captured Scoliae soiled with
little earthy encrustations on the joints of the legs. The Wasp, who is so
careful to keep clean, taking advantage of the least leisure to brush and
polish herself, could never display such blemishes unless she were a
devoted earth-worker. I used to suspect their trade, now I know it. They
live underground, where they burrow in search of Lamellicorn-grubs, just as
the Mole burrows in search of the White Worm. (The larva of the Cockchafer.
This grub takes three years or more to arrive at maturity underground.--
Translator's Note.) It is even possible that, after receiving the embraces
of the males, they but very rarely return to the surface, absorbed as they
are by their maternal duties; and this, no doubt, is why my patience
becomes exhausted in watching for their entrance and their emergence.