196 entomological news. [October, 



by vast tracts of desert sand or hard-baked mud, with an occa- 

 sional mountain chain raising jagged, irregular black peaks in 

 the distance. The valley itself, in the immediate vicinity of the 

 river, is more or less cut up by little sloughs or ditches, with a 

 growth of willows along their banks, and the native Indians 

 (Mojaves and Yumas) are able to produce crops of beans, melons 

 and corn by irrigation. Except in close proximity to water the 

 vegetation is of the dry, scrubby character peculiar to the south- 

 ern part of our arid Sonoran region — the mesquite and screw- 

 bean being about the only plants which can be said to attain the 

 dimensions of trees. An occasional pond of alkaline water fills 

 some depression, and during the driest weather wide stretches 

 of mud lie between the banks marking the bed of the river and 

 the edge of the stream itself. 



The heat of this low-lying area is very great, although the 

 drying winds from the adjacent deserts reduce the humidity and 

 thus lessen liability to sunstroke. Still, when one is collecting 

 in the thickets margining the water's edge, where no breeze is 

 stirring, the sweat pours off in streams at the least exertion. 

 When in the open an umbrella should be used as a protection. 

 I have no means of securing any official data as to temperature, 

 but have seen the thermometer standing, during an August after- 

 noon, at 120 in the shade. On another occasion I noticed that 

 it indicated over 100 degrees in an adobe house, about sunrise — 

 so it had probably not gone lower, in the building, through the 

 night. 



The valley is crossed by the Southern Pacific Railroad at 

 Yuma, and again by the Atlantic and Pacific at The Needles, 

 about one hundred and fifty miles farther north, measuring di- 

 rectly across country. At the time of my visit a steamboat plied 

 between these and other points. Comparatively little of the 

 population is white, the majority being Indians or "greasers," 

 as the mixed-blood Mexicans are called. 



My first trip to the region was made in 1888, when, coming 

 from the adjacent portion of Arizona, I arrived at The Needles 

 early in August and remained for the few days necessary in 

 making a cursory examination of the coleopterous fauna. The 

 altitude, at the railroad station, is about five hundred feet. The 

 river bottom is broad and grown up in places with weeds higher 

 than a man's head. Hot winds, almost like draughts from a 



