2 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



described in some detail, while certain useful differenti- 

 ating characters are carefully elucidated by drawings, and 

 a synoptic table given of the two groups into which the 

 species naturally fall. Full details are also given regarding 

 distribution, including many Scottish records, based upon the 

 examination of over a thousand specimens, and certain points 

 in the structure of the adult flies described and illustrated. 

 We shall look forward to the succeeding portion of this paper, 

 which we understand will deal with the early stages of these 

 important and hitherto little understood insects. 



Aerial warfare is an important and characteristic feature 

 in the great struggle which is now raging on the continent of 

 Europe. But attacks in the air do not appear to be confined 

 to the human race, for instances have just been published ^ of 

 beetles boring in aerial cables. The principal case reported 

 is one in which a Bostrychid beetle attacked certain lead- 

 covered aerial cables used for telephone distribution purposes 

 at Yeovil, South Africa. A clean-cut hole about one-eighth 

 of an inch in diameter was found in one of these cables, and 

 a beetle found inside the cable immediately behind the hole 

 in the sheath, which was made of lead. Upon investigation, 

 it appeared likely that the beetles were really attracted 

 by the ropes suspending the cable, so that the evil will 

 apparently not prove a very formidable one. Similar 

 damage has been reported from Shanghai, Hong Kong, 

 Queensland, and the Argentine — in each case the result of 

 attack by beetles of the family Bostrychidae. 



Many methods of reproduction are known amongst the 

 marine Hydroid Zoophytes, from the setting free of eggs to 

 the simple breaking away of runner-like " roots," similar in 

 function to the suckers of a strawberry plant. It has been 

 left to J, H. Ashworth and James Ritchie- to make a 

 complete study of the structure and development of the most 

 peculiar and most rare of these modes of multiplication, that 

 in which the egg, contained in a sporosac, breaks away from 

 the parent and for a time swims freely in the sea by means 

 of one or two tentacles. From the sac the egg later escapes, 



^ Bulletin of Eniomological Research, September 1915, p. 201. 

 2 Trans. Roy. Soc, Edinburgh, vol. 11., 191 5, p. 257. 



