1921] Wheeler: Some Social Beetles 71 



one of the larvse a shove with its head, but the tiny creature 

 instantly returned and went on with its stroking. At 8.14 the 

 beetle gave A such a vigorous knock that it stayed away from 

 the coccid for some time. B, however, kept returning so pertin- 

 aceously that the beetle twice seized it in its mandibles for an 

 mstant and then dropped it. The larva was uninjured, however, 

 and at once returned and went to work. Then the periodic but- 

 ting continued till 8.35 when larva A returned and went to work 

 with B on the side of the coccid. One or the other was butted 

 away by the beetle every few seconds till 9 P. M. During the 

 entire hour the coccid remained stationary and unresponsive, 

 never once raising its caudal segments nor emitting a droplet. 

 All this time the beetle had remained in the same spot and had 

 butted every beetle or larva with which its antennae had come 

 in contact. The beetles soon left after receiving a few knocks 

 but the little larvse A and B, which seemed to be famished, 

 persisted for a whole hour side by side, except for the 20 

 minutes during which A was absent. Larva B must have been 

 struck by the beetle more than a hundred times. Finally the lat- 

 ter's patience seemed to be exhausted ; it seized first A and then 

 B in its mandibles, carried the latter three millimeters away 

 from the coccid and hurled it to one side. Larva A returned, but 

 B had fallen out of the petiolar cavity onto the moist wall of 

 the glass tube, adhered and was unable to leave the surface. The 

 beetle now left the coccid and another very mature beetle (No. 

 4) took its place. It permitted larva A to stroke the posterior 

 end of the coccid without molestation, but beetle No. 3 soon 

 bustled up from the opposite direction, locked mandibles with 

 beetle No. 4 and pushed it away. During the scrimmage the 

 coccid suddenly raised its caudal end and discharged a droplet 

 which was eagerly inbibed by the larva, at length rewarded for 

 its incredible pertinacity and the innumerable knocks it had 

 received. Then beetle 3 and larva A, now in undisturbed posses- 

 sion of the coccid but in the reversed position, the former being 

 at the anterior, the latter at the caudal end of the coccid, con- 

 tinued their stroking, interrupted every few seconds by the 

 butting of the beetle and the temporary withdrawal of the 

 larva. This went on till 9.20. By that time my eyes which had 

 been following the performance under the lens for an hour and 

 twenty minutes were so fatigued that I had to desist from further 



