290 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



as I stated, nearer to Eretmotus than Sternocoelis ; and the same 

 remark applies also to the insects assigned to the genus 

 Satrapes, Schmidt. 



On the 20th of February it snowed the greater part of 

 the daj^ and although I remained at Hamman Eirha until the 

 8th March, in all twenty-one days, there was only one day which 

 was fairly fine and without rain. The season was, therefore, 

 favourable for the finding of the insects I wished for ; but the 

 muddy condition of the paths and the slipperiness of the 

 mountain-slopes, owing to the rain, made walking very difficult. 

 The most productive slopes for Sternocoelis I found to be those to 

 the south of the hotel, and to get at these it was necessary to wade 

 a small river. After crossing the stream the mountain of Zacca, 

 altitude about 5000 feet and snow-topped, was on my right, and 

 lying nearly due west. The surface of the slopes, which rise 

 beyond the river, is of stiff clay ; and the least disturbed portions 

 of the slopes, and the best for insects, are those where the gigantic 

 Scilla maritima grows, and where there is no scrub, but only 

 short grass. Here and there I could see places where the land 

 had been in recent times disturbed, perhaps by rude cultivation 

 by the Arabs before the French occupation, and these spots I 

 avoided. In all the places I have been to in Algeria and Morocco, 

 whenever I found scrub the hill- sides have been, comparatively 

 speaking, unproductive of Coleoptera ; and Mr. J. J. Walker has 

 observed the same thing. Possibly the scrub does not grow freely 

 on the more clayey parts of the hills, and the beetle-fauna of the 

 southern border of the Mediterranean is in a great part a crevice- 

 fauna. Beetles live under stones (many are blind), where in the 

 dry and hot season they have easy access into the crevices of the 

 clay, and in the wet season the soil swells and encloses them for 

 the winter under a solid stone roof. 



The ant here which attracts the beetles is an Aphcsnogaster, a 

 large black species, clothed with greyish hairs, and it is very 

 abundant, and makes a nest under stones which are half 

 embedded in the clay. The stones chiefly used by the ants are 

 those of a fair size, averaging about 10 to 18 inches in the 

 widest part. The smaller stones might perhaps serve the 

 purposes of the AplKsnogaster equally well, but they are 

 frequently disturbed by the feet of the goats which are pastured 

 on the slopes, and the ants when roughly disturbed have the 



