196 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited a number of balls composed of sol- 

 idified sandy clay which were lately brought from Egypt by the 

 well-known anthropologist. Dr. A. Hrdlicka, who found them 

 during his excavations of the ancient Egyptian tombs near 

 Lisht, the locality being about 30 miles south of Cairo, about 

 3 miles west of the Xile Valley, and near Fayum, made famous 

 by the recent palseontological discoveries. The balls, which arc 

 manifestly the indirect work of large coprophagous scarabarid 

 beetles, vary somewhat in size and shape ; some are finite 

 spherical, while others are more or less flattened; all of them 

 are quite hard. The largest ones measured more than 9 centi- 

 metres, the smallest ones less than 7 centimetres in diameter. 

 They occurred not infrequently in the desert sand at a depth 

 of from 18 inches to 3 feet. According to Dr. Hrdlicka the 

 particular region where the balls occurred is a perfect desert 

 and was always so, but the cultivated area is only a few 

 hundred feet away. The particular spot has been frequented 

 by camels ever since the introduction of this .Asiatic animal 

 into Egypt. Upon sawing open some of these balls the clung 

 pellet buried by the .beetles could be easily distinguished ( it 

 was not in the middle of the surrounding sand ball, but always 

 'in one side, although every trace of the original vegetable 

 matter had disappeared. In some of the opened balls the 

 mummified larva (apparently half grown) was found; others 

 did not contain anything, and it is supposed that the larva 

 either dried up when still quite young or that the egg failed 

 to hatch. The shape of the larva indicates a species of the 

 group Coprini, and if the size of the dung pellet and that of 

 the ball itself be an indication it would seem that the whole 

 is the work of specimens belonging to the genus Hcliocopris. 

 The age of these balls cannot be determined ; they may be 

 very ancient, or they may have been formed in recent timi"- : 

 at any rate, it is safe to say that in the dry soil and dry climate 

 of the Libyan Desert they would remain unchanged in the 

 ground for an indefinite period. 



I'rofessor Uhler remarked that on the island of Jamaica. 

 \\est Indies, he frequently found, in light >oil, the balls 



