OF WASHINGTON. 363 



spots but with only the humeral striae, and these nearly obsolete. 

 It has also only a single tarsal claw and the front margin of the 

 posternum is deeply emarginate (nov. gen.}. The Tenebrionid 

 larvae are distinct from any I have seen before.* 



The Spermophile. a very small greyish or almost whits 

 species, makes much smaller holes, although the entrances are 

 begun in the hole of some larger mammal, so that for the first two 

 feet it is frequently as large as that of the Florida Gopher. The 

 Spermophile holes sometimes branch near the entrance and 

 always turn abruptly. At a depth of 3 or 4 feet they ramify 

 and enter a network of galleries connected with several external 

 entrances. Frequently they are blind ends or small pockets, and 

 sometimes in these there are large wads or nests of a peculiar 

 soft grass which grows sparingly on the desert, or, at least in 

 this oasis. Some, if not all, of these grass bunches are nests, as 

 they are full of fleas and mites, and if near the surface they con 

 tain usually specimens of Ptomaphagus fisus. One nest we 

 found at the termination of the deepest burrow, about 5 feet ver 

 tical depth, in a layer of very dry gravel and stones, which was 

 composed not of grass but of a soft material like inner bark and 

 felted into a ball with a cavity inside, evidently an incubating 

 nest. It was also full of fleas in larva and imago, and also mites. 

 Small bits of dung occur at random in the burrows and these 

 attract in considerable numbers the Aleocharid with red elytra 

 mentioned above, and more rarely a peculiar Saprinusf with 

 rather translucent chitine and with oblique internal elytral spot. 

 A large fly larva eats into the pellets of dung and there is also the 

 small Tineid moth mentioned before, and a larger lepidopterous 

 larva the imago of which I did not see. The subterranean 

 crickets ( Ceuthophilus) and the gray flies are very abundant and 

 Tenebrionid larvas not rare. In digging one of these nests we 

 uprooted a common woody desert shrub and found in the roots an 

 immense Cerambycid larva \_Derobrachys brevicollis\ which I 

 still have alive. The elytra of this Cerambycid were frequently 

 found in and about the nests or holes of the Kangaroo rat. The 

 larva or the Saprinus mentioned above I secured in good series. 



* They have not been bred but may belong to Craniotus or Triorophug. 

 --E. A. S. 



t This is a true Saprinus but quite different from anyone in our fauna. 

 E. A. S. 



