84 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi xviii. 



aimlessly, until a suitable place is reached where it may be buried. 

 One pair that I followed, after doubling on their path, finally 

 concluded to bury the ball in the soft sand surrounding the imprint 

 of a pig's foot into which their treasure had fallen by accident. They 

 however, could have got it out again if they had not been satisfied 

 with the conditions. This pair and their ball was followed by three 

 small flies {Borborus genictdatus Macq.), which always kept at a 

 respectful distance until the ball was about to be buried, when they 

 lit upon it, and no doubt profited thereby, for Prof. C. W. Johnson 

 has informed me that the larva of this fly lives in decaying matter. 



In this case, also, I noticed an Onfliophagus pennsylvanictis pres- 

 ent, as I did on other occasions about the balls made by Canthon. 



The balls are often lost by the owners thereof. One I found in 

 a spring on Black Rock Mountain, where we occasionally got a 

 drink. It had rolled down the steep side of a ravine and had no 

 doubt taken the beetles along with it into the water, much to their 

 surprise. They hang closely to their treasure, and on one occasion I 

 saw a ball rolling at great speed down a steep clay bank bearing the 

 beetles along, bumpty-bump, over all obstacles. On another occasion 

 one of the beetles was detached as the ball bounded down a steep 

 incline, and it never found it again but flew away in another direc- 

 tion. This perhaps accounts for some of the cases where I found but 

 one beetle rolling a ball. 



Sometimes the balls were lost in the pot-holes in the clay where 

 they were too deep for the beetles to get them out again. On such 

 occasions I sometimes found that the little Onthophagus had profited 

 thereby, and had drilled them with its small tunnels, for they were 

 suitably enough located for tfiem. 



On our way up the mountain we often saw the showy robber-fly 

 Laphria saffrana, and on one occasion I observed another species of 

 robber-fly that had captured a Cicindcia sexguttata which was quite 

 as bulky as itself. The little Cicada hieroglyphica was not uncom- 

 mon in a certain belt of pines that we passed through, but we found 

 none below or above that level. The natives call the cicadas "jar 

 flies," and the big lumbering Passalus cornutus beetle is their "best 

 bug." 



Near the top of the mountain there were a few Lycccna ladon 

 of large size flying from one to the other of two tall squaw buckle- 



