438 Larval Habits of Bee-Filies. [June, © 
their formation, and made with such care, must have been 
designed for some important service, but even those of the com- 
paratively soft talcose rock have as sharp and apparently unused 
edges as if just made, the polished groove and edge often not show- 
ing even a scratch or notch. Some of them are worn, especially 
some of the smaller specimens, but most are not. Another 
noticeable fact, which perhaps might be less so in a larger collec- 
tion, is that each specimen has certain peculiarities of its own, So 
that it is quite difficult to find duplicates, though they do some- 
times occur, but each specimen seems to have been made accord- 
ing to the present fancy of the maker, and this appears to have 
varied somewhat as each new specimen was undertaken. This 
variety in form, size and material indicates that the gouge was not 
an implement designed for a single, limited use, but that, whether 
we can ascertain the use of the various kinds or not, their uses 
were as varied as their form and material. Gouge-like imple- 
ments have been, figured as skin dressers by some authors, and 
this, it seems to me, suggests better than anything else the prob- 
able explanation of the character of these implements. If use 
in cleaning adhering bits of fat or muscle from the skins a 
generally in use among the aborigines, the edge would remain 
unworn for a long time, even if the implement were made of ne 
very hard material. It may not improbably be true that some 
were used in excavating the charred portions of a log selected for 
a canoe, but it seems more probable that most were used, in wad 
way or another, in the processes of preparing skins for clothing 
or for whatever other purposes the skins may have been needed. 
——:0:-——— 
LARVAL HABITS OF BEE-FLIES.’ 
‘BY C. V. RILEY. 
HE bee-flies (Bombyliidz) are a family of Diptera that have 
a rapid, darting flight and hover over flowers, from which 
they extract nectar by means of a long proboscis which is a char-_ 
acteristic of most of the genera, They derive their popular 
name of bee-flies, or humble-bee flies, from their general resem 
blance to bees, due to the hairiness of the body, and enhanced by 
igsi to 
1 Adapted from the Second Report of the U. S. Entomological Commission, 
. . : P te 
which the publishers are indebted for permission to have impressions of the 
made at their expense, : 
* 
