Ecological and Behavior Notes 5 



this one species is concerned. Wishing not to judge hast- 

 ily, I made a thorough search for three hours in this 

 area; several hundreds of males were found, all in the 

 same behavior, but the only female discovered was one 

 Dasymutilla zella. It is possible that the females of B. 

 hexar taken early may have been unfertilized, — hence 

 the lack of any positive results in the experiments with 

 the Cicindela larvae. 



The female D. zella and about a dozen males of B. 

 hexar were placed in a large glass jar with earth in the 

 bottom. As soon as the thirteen were thrown together, 

 many of the males showed great eagerness to mate with 

 this female, even though she was of a different species. 

 She eventually escaped by climbing a tall stalk of grass 

 placed in the jar, and later burrowed in the soil. 



The males, like the females, often had bits of earth ad- 

 hering to the thorax and abdomen when they were cap- 

 tured, which indicates that they had recently been in the 

 ground. The above insects were placed in the jar with 

 earth at twilight, and before it was fully dark, three had 

 dug themselves in for the night, and before nine o'clock 

 all had disappeared under the earth, which was moder- 

 ately hard-packed. One is suprised that the winged 

 males can do this without injury to their delicate wings, 

 which are not heavily chitinized like those of other 

 earth inhabiting insects. The next morning at six o'clock 

 one was already up, and within a half hour all were out. 

 This is in all probability their sleeping behavior in na- 

 ture; the performance was repeated exactly night after 

 night. 



Honey was placed on small pieces of paper, and on 

 an aster flower with a six-inch stem. They often ate 

 ravenously, climbing up to the flower to feed, or eating 

 from the edge of the drop of honey on the papers ; only 

 one male was so awkward as to walk into it. 



On August 11 the same region was searched; a half- 

 dozen females of Dasymutilla zella were taken there, and 



