78 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



essential ; otherwise any estimate of damage by Hares must 

 be one-sided and over-stated. It is certainly remarkable 

 that at this present time the French Government should be 

 making inquiries as to how best to re-stock the devastated 

 area of the war zone with Partridges and Hares. 



We will conclude these notes with a strong -recommenda- 

 tion that Mr Gunther's Report should be carefully studied 

 in extenso ; at the same time we must express our satisfaction 

 that the vexed question of agricultural damage by Vermin 

 and Birds should have been dealt with in such a tolerant 

 and broad-minded spirit. 



Tabanus (Therioplectes) montanus, Mg., and Anisomera 

 nigra, Walk., in the Lothians. A good many years ago I 

 recorded {Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1901, p. 52), under the name of 

 Tabanus bromius, L., three specimens of a "cieg" captured at 

 Bavelaw Moss, Midlothian, on 24th June 1895. On a careful 

 re-examination of these specimens, I find they are referable to 

 Tabanus {Therioplectes) montanus, Mg., as described in vol. v. of 

 Verrall's British Flies, published in 1909. On 21st July last (1917) 

 the same species was common at Blawhorn Moss, West Lothian, 

 to the annoyance of both cattle and entomologist. Only females 

 were seen. Compared with examples from Aberfoyle, 30th June 

 1905, recorded by me in Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1907, p. 54, these 

 Lothians specimens are more uniformly dark, showing little or no 

 trace of reddish colouring on the sides of the abdomen and the 

 antenna?. 



A dark Tipulid-like fly, taken among rushes beside a hill stream 

 in the south-western part of East Lothian, on nth July 1917, is 

 clearly a male of the species described and figured in Walker's 

 work on British Diptera, vol. iii., under the name Anisomera nigra, 

 Latr. That name, however, does not appear in Verrall's List of 

 British Diptera, 1901, and it seems there is a synonymic tangle, 

 which I have not at present the means of satisfactorily unravelling. 

 Apparently the matter amounts to this : Walker's A. nigra is not 

 Latreille's, and consequently Loew renamed the former A. squall's, 

 which is given in Verrall's list. Walker states that the fly is rare in 

 England and Scotland. William Evans, Edinburgh. 



