244 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



of their diet of Indian corn. The cote is of the usual form, 

 in two stories, so to speak, each with two openings. Last 

 year the lower story was appropriated by a pair of Starlings 

 which reared their young therein, and returned this year for 

 the same purpose. The upper story, however, has been occupied 

 this season by more august lodgers. A pair of Barn Owls 

 (Strix flammed) have reared therein a family of four line youngsters, 

 and are so indulgent as to allow my grandchildren to handle 

 them and bring them into the house, at the risk, it must be 

 said, of occasional sharp nips. I think this instance of amicable 

 symbiosis the Owls, the Starlings, and the solitary Pigeon is 

 worth recording. The flower garden round the house is the 

 abode of many field-mice and field-voles, which, no doubt, would 

 prove a far more serious affliction than they are were it not for 

 this beneficent family of Barn Owls. Nor are these the only 

 police ; for the place resounds at night with the hooting of the 

 Brown Owl (Syrniutn aluco), which must have nested in the wood 

 that flanks the garden. Unluckily those useful slug and insect- 

 hunters, the Shrews, pay the death penalty for their resemblance to 

 mice. Owls, I believe, are not deterred by the glandular effluvium 

 of these little creatures, and swallow them readily ; so the corpses 

 which I find lying in the borders must be set to the discredit 

 of a certain white cat. Herbert Maxwell, Monreith. 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



British Gall-midges. A Preliminary Catalogue of British 

 Cecidomyidre (Diptera), etc., by R. S. Bagnall and J. W. Heslop 

 Harrison, issued in the current part of the Trans. Entom. Soc. (16th 

 May 19 18) affords a useful check list to British Gall-midges. There 

 are several Scottish records, including that of Amblyspatha ormerodi, 

 Kieffer (191 3), which is known only from the northern kingdom. 



The Fauna of the Clvde Sea Area. 1 Under this title 

 Mr James Chumley has made a useful contribution to Scottish 

 natural history, since for the first time the results of eight years' 

 collecting, carried out by the late Sir John Murray on the 

 "Medusa,"' have appeared in connected form. The value of the 

 long lists of species found in the different areas of the Firth of 

 Clyde is added to by physical and biological notes which 

 accompany each section of the fauna, and by a comprehensive 

 bibliography of papers dealing with the Clyde fauna. 

 1 Published at Glasgow at the University Press. 



