WILD LIFE IN CALIFORNIA 



65 



erous and the flowers so abundant that they 

 make the places conspicious. In all my 

 travels in the mountains I never happened 

 to meet with such an occurrence. With the 

 clematis I was almost a total stranger, so 

 when I saw the pretty vine with its attractive 

 flowers creeping over the top of a mountain 

 shrub along the old roadside I was more than 

 pleased, though at first I did not recognize 

 it. However, a few moments of study of its 

 peculiarities soon enabled me to identify it. 

 For the last three seasons I had been looking 

 for this particular plant. I do not recite these 

 facts to question the accuracy of the writers 

 who claim for it appearance so numerous in 

 places, but it might be truthfully said those 

 places are not common. It reminds me that 

 while on a visit to Catalina Island I found 

 two specimens of Isomeris, the only ones that 

 had ever come under my notice. Later while 

 exploring a canyon near Palm Springs, Colo- 

 rado desert, I came across a couple more 

 plants of the same kind. Up to this time I 

 concluded this plant was exceedingly rare 

 even in Southern California, its home; but it 

 was a conclusion I freely gave up later when 

 from a car window while on a trip in the 

 southern part of the State I saw miles of 

 Isomeri growing along the roadside. 



Another flower found on this excursion, 

 said to be common in some sections, which I 

 had not met with for many years, was a 

 specimen of that odd but pretty little yel- 

 lowish blossom known as Whispering bells, 

 Emmenanthe penduliflora. Its range is given 

 as being from Lake county, Calif., to Ari- 

 zona. The topmost flowers on the flower 

 stalk stand erect when they first open, but 

 as the stalk grows and other buds take the 

 terminal position they droop until they hang 

 gracefully downward. Later they become 

 dry like paper, keeping their cup, or bell, 

 shape, and as some people thought they de- 

 tected a faint noise arising from the wind- 

 shaken blossoms they were called Whispering 

 bells. The plants are about twelve or four- 

 teen inches tall, and the flower stalk carries 

 eight or ten blossoms — the bells of which are 

 a little over a half inch in depth. 



While traveling along the old road near 

 the upper end of the canyon I had noticed 

 here and there great numbers of fly-like in- 

 sects slowly flying about; their manner of 

 flight was erratic, and was confined to but 

 little more than the breadth of the road and 

 to not more than fifteen or twenty feet of its 

 length, and in this area they seldom flew 

 higher than six or eight feet. I passed 

 through three or four congregations of these 

 insects, without giving them much thought 

 or attention, as my mind was almost wholly 

 taken up with the botanical developments 

 and possibilities of the trip. However, after 

 passing out of the canyon and starting for 

 home down the new road I encountered more 

 groups of the insects, . which seemed to be 

 flying about in the manner described as if 

 they were deriving as much fun and enjoy- 

 ment from the exercise as a lot of youngsters 

 on roller skates. I stopped to make a closer 

 inspection of the ever-moving insects. Then 



I noticed that in nearly every instance of 

 what I had taken to be individual flies were 

 two or more insects united soaring about as 

 one. I could see that the insects were slim- 

 mer than house flies and were about a half 

 inch or 1nore in length, and something of the 

 form of the mosquito. With a gauze insect 

 collecting net I soon captured some of them. 

 On every occasion the captives con- 

 sisted of a united group of three flies, but 

 always I found one fly to be dead or nearly 

 so. At first I thought the flies were of such 

 delicate nature that they succumbed to the 

 blow of the cloth in netting them, but after 

 capturing a dozen or more groups and find- 

 ing only one dead fly in each case, and that 

 the other two flies were so far from being 

 injured by the operation, that it was with 

 some difficulty that I could get them in my 

 fingers. Now I noticed that the dead flies 

 were somewhat smaller and apparently of a 

 different species, although similar in form. 

 A little further observation of the action of 

 the insects dancing round and about me in the 

 air revealed facts that put an altogether dif- 

 ferent interpretation upon the actions of the 

 assembled flies. Instead of an innocent 

 gathering to while away time and to enjoy the 

 delights of a most agreeable atmosphere, a 

 tragedy on a large scale was being enacted. 

 It was a dance indeed, but a dance of death 

 for a multitude of victims, furnishing a 

 bloody feast for the ogreish hosts, which 

 were none other than a species of the ferocious 

 family known as Robber Flies. 



The assemblage in certain localities as 

 mentioned was due to the presence there of 

 their victims, which in turn may have col- 

 lected to feed upon some special article of 

 food. The Robber flies soared and hovered 

 around like hawks and swooped down upon 

 their victims with the unerring certainty of 

 their prototypes. But unlike most other 

 predaceous forms of life, instead of retiring 

 to some place where they could alight and feed 

 upon their victims with the least chance of in- 

 terference or interruption, they continue to 

 leisurely fly around while sucking the ' life 

 juices of their captives. Another remarkable 

 feature in the conduct of the flies in their 

 raids for food is that as soon as a Robber 

 fly captures an insect another Robber fly 

 or two attach themselves to the victim and 

 proceed to join in the feast, the duo or trio 

 of robbers continuing their feasting flight as 

 one insect. Apparently the selfishness so 

 commonly manifested over food by all ani- 

 mal life is absent here, and instead there is 

 concordance of purpose and a harmony of 

 wing movement, making a unity of action that 

 gives the blood-thirsty duos and trios the ap- 

 pearance while in flight of being one insect. 



Although there are said to be in the neigh- 

 borhood of about 3000 species of this family 

 of flies known to entomologists, varying 

 greatly in form and size, the slender mos- 

 quito-formed flies described in the foregoing 

 are more typical of the voracious tribe. The 

 family title of Robber flies is Asiliclae, which 

 Sharp places twenty-fourth in the order of 



