s sides, now holding the bee in her mandibles
by the antennae, clinging as she climbs to the vertical polished surface
with all six feet. She gains the summit of the glass, stays for a little
while in the flask-like cavity of the terminal button or handle, returns
to the ground, and resumes her circuit of the glass and her climbing,
relinquishing the bee only after an obstinate attempt to escape with it.
The persistence with which the Philanthus retains her clasp upon the
encumbering burden shows plainly that the game would go straight to the
larder were the insect at liberty.

Those bees intended for the larvae are stung under the chin like the
others; they are true corpses; they are manipulated, squeezed, exhausted
of their honey, just as the others. There is no difference in the method
of capture nor in their after-treatment.

As captivity might possibly result in a few anomalies of action, I
decided to inquire how matters went forward in the open. In the
neighbourhood of some colonies of Philanthidae I lay in wait, watching
for perhaps a longer time than the question justified, as it was already
settled by what occurred in captivity. My scrupulous watching at various
times was rewarded. The majority of the hunters immediately entered
their nests, carrying the bees pressed against their bodies; some halted
on the neighbouring undergrowth; and these I saw treating the bee in the
usual manner, and lapping the honey from its mouth. After these
preparations the corpse was placed in the larder. All doubt was thus
destroyed: the bees provided for the larvae are previously carefully
emptied of their honey.

Since we are dealing with the subject, let us take the opportunity of
inquiring into the customs of the Philanthus in a state of freedom.
Making use of her victims when absolutely lifeless, so that they would
putrefy in the course of a few days, this hunter of bees cannot adopt
the customs of certain insects which paralyse their prey, and fill their
cellars before laying an egg. She must surely be obliged to follow the
method of the Bembex, whose larva receives, at intervals, the necessary
nourishment; the amount increasing as the larva grows. The facts confirm
this deduction. I spoke just now of the tediousness of my watching when
watching the colonies of the Philanthus. It was perhaps even more
tedious than when I was keeping an eye upon the Bembex. Before the
burrows of _Cerceris tuberculus_ and other devourers of t