36 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



four specimens of Adelops hirtiis ran 

 swiftly away from it and hid in cracks, or 

 in the shadows of small projections of the 

 wall, as though they perceived and shunned 

 the light of my lamp. Their manner 

 was exactly that of a Catops when simi- 

 larly disturbed. Before the return of the 

 party I succeeded in finding one other 

 moist crevice with bats' dung, about which 

 I found and captured a few more speci- 

 mens of Adelops. My friend N. who had 

 gone with the guide, brought back a speci- 

 men of Anophthalmus Tellkampfii and two 

 of Adelops, both found at Richardson's 

 Spring. This is one of the places where 

 parties stop to take lunch, and crumbs of 

 food are left scattered about. The guide 

 William, who assisted Dr. Packard in his 



[Fig. lo,] 



C^CIDOTEA STVGlA ; magnified six times, with inner short 

 antenna of left side (after Hubbard). 



explorations, thinks it the best locality in 

 the cave for Anophthalini, but I did not 

 visit it. 



The next morning N. and I returned to 

 the Rotunda, and found a fresh supply of 

 Adelops about the same bits, of dung 

 where I had taken them the night before. 

 Other and better ledges also turned up, 

 and we secured in all about thirty speci- 

 mens of the beetle. While examining the 

 side walls a small patch of clay adhering 

 to the rock, attracted my attention from 



its lumpy appearance, and picking at it I 

 opened a small oval cell in which was a 

 pupa, evidently of Adelops. This was a 

 grand discovery, and while N. made a 

 search for other lumpy patches, I carefully 

 uncovered four cells, all that were found 

 together in this piece. Each cell contained 

 a pupa, and I collected them with the skins 

 of the larvae. Near by I found another 

 and then a third cluster, and N. found one 

 or two more, all within a foot or two of 

 the floor. The number of cells in each 

 cluster varied from four to twelve. One 

 cell enclosed a larva, and two or three 

 others contained recently transformed 

 imagos of Adelops hirtus. In the immediate 

 vicinity we also found a few larvae feeding 

 upon bats' dung in company with imagos, 

 some of the latter quite young and soft, 

 evidently not long out of their pupa cells. 

 I have since examined and verified Pack- 

 ard's figure of the larva [Atn. Naturalist, 

 Vol. x, pi. II) which proves to be cor- 

 rectly ascribed to this beetle, and very 

 well represents its appearance when con- 

 tracted by strong alcohol. The history of 

 Adelops is therefore now complete. At 

 the end of this paper will be found descrip- 

 tions, with figures, of the larva and 

 pupa. 



Nearly every part of the Rotunda is very 

 dry and devoid of life, the corner in which 

 the cells of Adelops occured, had however 

 a slight cave dampness, and so well repaid 

 our search that we devoted the greater 

 part of the morning to examining this 

 recess alone.* The carcass of an ox lay 

 here close to the wall and partly buried 

 beneath a heap of stones and earth. 

 Though long past the stage of putrefaction, 

 if indeed the ordinary process of putrefac- 

 tion ever takes place in the pure air of the 

 cave, and entirely odorless, the flesh still 



* The manufacture of saltpetre, abandoned in i8i2, was 

 formerly carried on very extensively in the Rotunda, where 

 traces of the " works " may still be seen in the remams of huge 

 wooden troughs and water pipes, and a general litter of boxes 

 and barrels about the chamber. Oxen were at that time em- 

 ployed in the excavations, and lived and died here. In later 

 times three log houses were erected in the Rotunda, which for 

 a time were tenanted by a small colony of consumptives, who 

 hoped to prolong their lives by living in a climate that does 

 not vary the year round. Like the oxen these unfortunates 

 quickly succumbed to the dampness and darkness, and left 

 behind them, if not their bodies, many another rich feast for 

 the mites and mould. 



