The burrow penetrates to a depth of about three feet in a compact soil; sometimes in a vertical, sometimes in a horizontal direction.

The spade and pick, wielded by hands more vigorous but less expert than my own, are indispensable; but the conduct of the excavation is anything but satisfactory.

At the extremity of the long gallery--it seems as though the straw I use for sounding would never reach the end--we finally discover the cells, egg-shaped cavities with the longer axis horizontal.

Their number and their mutual disposition escape me.
Some already contain the cocoon--slender and translucid, like that of the Cerceris, and, like it, recalling the shape of certain homoeopathic phials, with oval bodies surmounted by a tapering neck.
By the extremity of the neck, which is blackened and hardened by the dejecta of the larvae, the cocoon is fixed to the end of the cell without any other support.

It reminds one of a short club, planted by the end of the handle, in a line with the horizontal axis of the cell.