ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 185 



hedge at Comiston, near Edinburgh; and in October 1896 a P. 

 erinacei was shaken from moss and leaves at Mortonhall. 



Perhaps the following observations on the Squirrel flea (Cera- 

 tophy Hits sriuroruni) are worth mentioning. In the beginning of June 

 1909 I had a squirrel's nest, from near Dunbar, securely tied up in 

 a stout paper bag. On opening the bag from time to time living 

 fleas have always been encountered ; to-day, iSth March, i.e. after the 

 lapse of 9 1 months, five or six were seen on a hasty glance. From 

 a hole in the bottom of the bag a number of dead ones have on 

 several occasions been shaken out. The bag, I may say, has lain 

 all along in a dry place, and the nest has never been moistened. 

 None of the images that were in the nest when it was obtained are 

 likely, I should think, to have survived all this time, those latterly 

 met with being, it may be presumed, a subsequent brood which have 

 passed through their various stages in the interval. I have already 

 recorded in the "Annals" (1906, p. 163) the finding of C. styx in 

 plenty in Sand-Martins' burrows, near Elie, on i3th April (not May- 

 as erroneously printed in the note) awaiting the return of the birds 

 from their winter quarters in the south. How long Siphonaptera 

 are able to live without access to a host, and whether such access is 

 necessary for the repetition of the life-cycle, are questions of con 

 siderable interest. WILLIAM EVANS, Edinburgh. 



British Orthoptera (Earwigs, Cockroaches, Grasshoppers, and 

 Crickets). Mr. W. J. Lucas (28 Knights' Park, Kingston-on- 

 Thames) would be glad to hear of records or captures of Scottish 

 examples, especially of the commoner species, so that a better know- 

 ledge may be obtained of the distribution of the members of this 

 Natural Order in Britain, for a monograph which he has in hand. 



BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS. 



Andresea petrophila, Ehrh., var. gracilis, B. and S. J. A. 

 Whaldon, in the "Journal of Botany " (1910, p. 102), in a paper on 

 'Marrat's Collection of British Mosses,' has a note to the following 

 effect : " I refer to this a slender reddish plant, labelled by Marrat, 

 'A. alpina, Hed., a curiosity found on Ben-na-Boord, Forfar. July, 

 1844.' It is new to V.C. 90." As this note may lead to the moss 

 being erroneously recorded for Forfarshire, V.C. 90, it seems well to 

 state that " Ben-na-Boord" is not in Forfarshire, but on the border 

 of South Aberdeenshire, V.C. 92, and Banffshire, V.C. 94, being 

 chiefly in 92. 



Lyeopodium Selago, Z., in a strange habitat. This Clubmoss 

 has become scarce within some miles of Aberdeen, the peaty soils 

 preferred by it having been much reduced by the exhaustion of 

 many of the peat-mosses and the drainage and cultivation of moors. 



