112 Psyche [June 



country, and curiously seem to resemble it in general appearance. 

 Their expeditions are made during the afternoon from the end of 

 June to August, occasionally three times in the same day. 



I wish to tender my sincere thanks to Prof. W. M. Wheeler for 

 his valuable suggestions. 



March 15, 1911. 



ON MELANETMRWS IXFERXALIS FALL. 



By William Morton Wheeler, 

 Harvard University. 



The singular Histerid beetle Melanetoerius infernalis was first 

 described by Fall in this journal in 1907 ^ from a single 

 individual taken at Pasadena, California, Dec. 1st, 1902, "from 

 nest of unknown ant." WTiile I was on a collecting trip 

 during the past winter in Arizona and California Mr. Fall 

 showed me the type specimen, which he had found in a collection 

 obtained from a local entomologist who had died without leaving 

 any information concerning the precise locality in which the beetle 

 had been captured. By a strange coincidence, while I was collect- 

 ing Dec. 1st, 1910, on the anniversary of the taking of this type 

 specimen, I not only rediscovered the beetle but was able to ascer- 

 tain the host-ant with which, in all probability, it normally lives. 

 In a small canyon that enters the west side of the Gran Arroyo 

 Seco near Pasadena, I found several nests of the typical yellow form 

 of Pheidole hyatti Emery. All of these were under rather large 

 stones, and from one of the nests, which was somewhat isolated 

 and in the middle of the floor of the canyon, I took seven specimens 

 of the Melanetccrius. They were all quietly clinging to the under 

 surface of the stone in the midst of the ants and made no effort to 

 escape when the nest was disturbed. A few hundred yards from 

 this spot and at the very opening of the side canyon into the 

 Arroyo I found another colony of the same ant containing a single 

 specimen of the beetle. 



All of the specimens agree very closely with one another and 



^ Two New Myrmecophilous Histeridse. Psyche XIV, Aug. 1907, pp. 68-70. 



