same time hoping that either you or some of your entomological correspondents will help me to the name. It was during the time of corn-harvest that I was one day sitting within doors, near an open window, when in flew what at first, from its bands of black and yellow, and from its general appearance, I took for a wasp. It was laden with a mass of moist clay, which it proceeded to deposit between the open leaves of a book, that chanced to be standing on one end near the window. After some time spent in fixing and forming to his mind, away flew my little architect, soon however to return, but this time laden with a green caterpillar, seemingly as heavy as himself, but quite unresisting and motionless, as if caught and carried off in a profound nap, or awed into submission by terror or rough handling. The victim was stowed away in the same depositary as the clay, by a fresh importation of which he was subsequently closely immured. Another and another green caterpillar in succession shared the same fate, "each in his narrow cell," to the number of somewhere about half-a-dozen. Having to go out to stay a day or two at a friend's, my observations were broken off, not however without requesting that during my absence the window, book, and all, might remain undisturbed. But it is hard to provide against carelessness, curiosity and housewifery (the collector's bane!):—on my return all was found demolished. It may be well to mention that though this was the only season that the fly came under my observation, several other individuals were at the same time similarly engaged in sealing up victims in the crevices of a loosely built wall close at hand.—W.L. Beynon; Down Hall, near Harlow, June 28, 1843.
[May not the insect be the mason wasp (Epipone lævipes), mentioned in the preceding communication?—Ed.]
I shall, in the first place, give a full account of the capture of Claviger. I believe the first specimen taken in this country was found a few years back in a nest of Formica flava, by Mr. John O. Westwood, at Ensham, in Oxfordshire: this solitary capture, together with the time which has since elapsed, and no second specimen turning up, had induced the conclusion that it was one of our rarest insects; but the interesting observations of a foreign naturalist, P.W.J. Müller, have drawn the attention of entomologists generally to this insect.
On the 29th of April last, Mr. E. Doubleday and Mr. Ingall were at Mickleham, on an entomological excursion, and were turning over stones in a field in search of Coleoptera, &c, when on turning over a stone which covered a nest of F. flava, a strange-looking insect was observed on the under side, in company with some of the ants; this proved to be the Claviger (Zool. 200): another was found on the 1st of May, and, although they turned over cartloads of stones in that and some of the adjoining fields, no more could be found at that time; but on Monday, the 19th of June, the spot having been pointed out
