GLEANINGS 95 



In The Field for 10th February 1912 (p. 251), H. W. Robinson records an 

 Otter weighing 32 lbs. The animal was shot by Don. Maclean at Coulin, 

 Kinlochewe, and recorded by him in the Scotsman dated 31st January. 



In the Manchester Memoirs (vol. 56, 1 91 2), Lionel W. Adams brings forward 

 additional evidence to show that the parent generation of the Common and the 

 Lesser Shrew suffers annual extinction. The chart of head and body measurements 

 is especially interesting, as it clearly indicates that individuals reach their full size 

 in the summer, and then altogether disappear. Observations on habits prove 

 how insatiable is the appetite of the Shrew, for of all the creatures offered as food, 

 a Wasp was the only living thing absolutely rejected. 



From British Birds (March 1912), we note the following : — A Ferruginous 

 Duck (Fuligula nyroca), female, was procured off Tacket Wood, on the Kings- 

 bridge estuary, South Devon, on 27th January 1912 (E. A. S. Elliot, p. 280). On 

 p. 281 J. H. Gurney records a Little Bustard {Otis tetrax) shot at Strumshaw, 

 near Norwich, on 4th January, three days after the Kincardineshire one {Scot. Nat., 

 191 2, p. 44). 



Richard Elmhirst publishes, in the January number of the Zoologist (pp. 1 5-20), 

 some "Notes from the Millport Marine Biological Station." The article, which 

 bears the sub-title "Observations on the Behaviour of Fish," deals with the 

 shyness of recently captured specimens of various species, the presence in the 

 Millport district of large shoals of young Herrings during the autumn months, 

 and the changes of colour in fishes generally under the influence of various 

 conditions. 



H. St J. K. Donisthorpe, in the Entomologist 's Record for February (pp. 34-40), 

 continues his interesting " Myrmecophilous Notes for 191 1." Many observations, 

 too numerous to be detailed here, were made in Scotland. 



In the Ent. Mo. Mag. for March (pp. 56-59), is published a further instalment 

 of the valuable paper by the late G. H. Verrall, on " Another Hundred New 

 British Species of Diptera." The following Scottish records are of interest : 

 Gymnopternns brevicornis, Staeg., Nethy Bridge ; Chrysotus varians, Kow., 

 Rannoch ; Porphyrons fracta, Lw., Nethy Bridge and Brodie ; and Thrypticus 

 divisus, Strobl, Nairn. 



Syntemna alpicola, Strobl, a new British fly of the Family Mycetophilidi?, is 

 recorded by F. Jenkinson from near Forres QEnt. Mo. Mag., March 1912, p. 67.) 



The genus Hybos (Diptera — Family Empidoe) has hitherto been only imperfectly 

 understood by British workers. A short but useful paper is given by A. E. J. Carter 

 in the Ent. Mo. Mag. for March (pp. 59-60), with a table pointing out the 

 differences between our three recorded species, viz., femoraius, Mull., culiciformis, 

 Fab., and grossipes, L. The last mentioned appears to be the rarest of the three, 

 but is recorded from Perthshire and (in a footnote by J. E. Collin) Lochinver, 

 Nethy Bridge, and Spey Bridge. 



A new British flea, Palceopsylla kohanti, Dampf, is interesting from the fact that 

 it " has so far been regarded as an Eastern insect, the most western point at which 

 it had been previously secured being Wels in Lower Austria." The three 



