JUAN VINAS— TENANTS OF BROMELIADS 233 



found and there was so much still to be examined that I 

 left the plants where they had fallen, and resumed the cut- 

 ting oif of the leaves the following morning. When all the 

 larger ones had been removed I carried the three stocks, 

 still so firmly united that I was unable to separate them and 

 weighing some fifteen pounds, to the spring farther down 

 the canon side so that I could wash out the mud and make 

 more careful search. At noon — after three hours' con- 

 stant work — I finished the examination and had found two 

 more dragonfly larvae. These larvae were kept in bottles 

 with a few bits of bromeliad leaves added to make the sur- 

 roundings homelike. All reached Cartago alive, but the one 

 found October 3 died when attempting to moult on Octo- 

 ber 7; one of the others died from some unknown cause, 

 while the third lived until December 30-31. They were fed, 

 and seen to eat, smaller dragonfly larvse and blood-worms. 



All four bromeliads examined were inhabited by some 

 animals. The fourth, besides containing dragonfly larvae, was 

 tenanted by a young scorpion two inches long which had just 

 shed its skin, the latter also found; several species of daddy- 

 longlegs (Phalangids), and of Pseudoscorpions; the latter are 

 like miniature scorpions but without the long slender hind 

 abdomen. The Pseudoscorpions have a pair of relatively 

 long fore limbs (pedipalps) ending in claws like a crab's 

 and as the creatures ran or walked over the surfaces of the 

 leaves they held these pedipalps stretched wide apart as if 

 to embrace whatever they met. There were also several 

 species of beetles, both adults and larvae; certain of the latter 

 seemed especially well adapted to life between the appressed 

 leaves of the bromeliad, for although the larvae were one to 

 one and one-half inches long and a quarter inch or more 

 wide, they were relatively thin, less than one-eighth inch. 

 These are believed to be the larvae of Semiotus, one of the 

 click-beetles {Elateridcs) . A caterpillar, perhaps of the moth 



