1877.] Hunting Amblychila. Bie 
If we allow, out of the nine hundred and thirty-two adults, 
the large proportion two hundred and sixty to be unmarried, we 
will have an average result of only two children in every family. 
The mortality of the race being much greater than the increase 
in population (being about equally divided between the two 
sexes) the Moquis are rapidly passing away. In the last quarter 
of a century there has been a decrease of five thousand in their 
entire number. After the lapse of the next score or so of years 
the race will most probably have become extinct. 
HUNTING AMBLYCHILA.? 
BY PROFESSOR F. H. SNOW. 
i considering the unintelligibility of the title of this paper to 
one who is not a professional entomologist, I am reminded of 
a brief dialogue which occurred between Mr. Foster, a member 
of my last summer’s collecting party, and a cow-boy of the 
plains, who passed by one evening while Mr. Foster was looking 
for specimens. After watching him for some moments with 
great curiosity, the cow-boy asked: ** What you doing?” Mr. 
Foster replied: “ Hunting Amblychila.” The cow-boy, bewil- 
dered, inquired again: “ Ambly Cheila, — who’s she?”’ “ Who 
she is” it will be the object of this paper in some measure to 
explain. 
In 1823 the famous entomologist Thomas Say discovered a 
single dead specitaes of this insect “ near the base of the Rocky 
Mountains.” ‘Twenty-nine years later a second specimen, also 
dead, was found by one of the United States surveying expedi- 
tions. The remarkable structure and extreme rarity of this bee- 
tle made it “facile princeps” among American insects, and its 
possession was eagerly desired and earnestly sought by our fore- 
most entomologists. But many difficulties lay in the pathway 
of those who would gain the coveted prize. The regions in 
which the two specimens had been captured were practically in- 
accessible to the entomologist. No railroad had then entered 
the vast country west of the Missouri River, and hostile bands of 
Indians were at all times in readiness to massacre the reckless 
adventurers who should dare to traverse their hunting-grounds 
without a powerful military escort. A national expedition for 
1 Read at the annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, October 12, 
1877, by Professor F. H. Snow, of the Kansas University. 
