304 
At the extreme end of the tunnel I found the gopher, quiescent but 
not dormant and resting upon a thin layer of fibrous material, evidently 
the winter accumulation of its excreta, in which could be plainly dis- 
cerned the coarser and undigested portions of the leaves and vegeta- 
tion which formed its food. Beneath this layer the sand was mined 
in every direction with the burrows of coprophagous insects, and I soon 
had a considerable collection, including a Trichopteryx, a new Histerid 
allied to Saprinus with its larva, and finally a Copris, which, from its 
size and general appearance, I took without doubt to be the universally 
distributed Copris minutus of our barnyards. But upon comparison 
with the known forms of the genus this proves to be quite a new and 
distinct species. 
Besides the main deposit of dung upon which the animal was resting 
I found several smaller deposits which had evidently been pressed 
aside and partly imbedded in the sand by the movements of the turtle. 
These were all centers of attraction for the dung-eating beetles, but I 
found lurking in one of the masses a number of lepidopterous larv?e 
an inch or so long. Their dusky-brown coloration so closely corre- 
sponded with the material in which they lay concealed that I would 
probably have overlooked them had not their lively antics, their wrig- 
gling and twisting when disturbed made them very conspicuous objects. 
My first suspicion that these caterpillars were coprophagous was after- 
wards confirmed, and I ascertained that they eat the fresh dung of 
the turtle in preference to that which has been overhauled by other 
insects. 
Only three burrows were opened in January, and of these one alone was 
inhabited by the gopher. In the month of July following I examined 
a larger number of gopher burrows, and in all eight galleries were 
carefully and thoroughly explored. The midsummer explorations 
greatly increased the knowledge previously gained of the habits of the 
gopher insects and added several new forms to the list. As most of 
these insects are new to science, detailed descriptions of them will be 
found at the end of this paper. 
The following is an enumeration of the insects found in the gopher 
burrows, with the habits of each as far as I have been able to observe 
them. 
COLEOPTERA. 
(1) Homalota sp. — A small blackish species which has not been identified with 
any of tbose in our collections occurs in considerable numbers in the terminal 
"nest" of the turtle. It is not at all a striking form, and belongs to a group of 
numerous and, for the most part, unstudied species, many of which live in dung. 
To name and describe it at this time would only add to the confusion already 
existing in this and other genera of North American Aleocharinae. 
(2) Philonthus gopheri n. sp. —Occurs sparingly in many burrows. The larva was 
not discovered, but it presumably feeds upon the other insects in the burrows. 
(3) Trichopteryx n. sp. — A brown species allied to T. ambigua Matthews. Abun- 
dant in accumulations of old dung at tbe end of many of the burrows. 
