270 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly August 



nesting accommodation when we obtain the ' special legislation against 

 ornithologists and egg-collectors,' which Mr. Haines desires, and 

 doubtless thinks would greatly increase these small birds' numbers ? 



" Next, the nightingale, about which we are told that there are two 

 pairs in the immediate neighbourhood of Uppingham. How many pairs 

 of nightingales ought we reasonably to expect to be in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of any town ? And what about the other commoner 

 warblers, the whitethroat, willow-wren, etc. — a dozen or more species ? 

 Really one wonders that so many escape the collectors, the crows, and 

 the cats ; and imagination fails to conceive how these little favourites 

 found room for existence in their palmy days. 



" Most of our birds of prey having been sacrificed to ' pheasant 

 worship,' the heron to angling, and with the raven utterly exterminated 

 from English counties, Mr. Haines yet would have us destroy four-fifths 

 of the numbers of the family Corvida?. I should like to know if, 

 under such circumstances, it would then be a criminal offence for a 

 collector to take the eg"gs of any of these species, say the chough for 

 example. Perhaps not, if the collector took them to boil hard and 

 eat cold. 



" But the egg-collector may take further comfort, for it is not sug- 

 gested that the eggs of the peewit should have other than partial pro- 

 tection, although this bird now ' suffers from the taking of its eggs.' 

 Possibly, however, the collector would only be allowed to take these 

 eggs for the ' table ' ; and here we see where there is a ' morale ' 

 even in egg-collecting. 



" I, though a collector, love nothing in nature so much as birds, and 

 find no more to criticise in Mr. Haines paper than in most other con- 

 tributions to the Natural History press, which are now mostly on a par 

 with the articles inserted in the Angler's Column of a country news- 

 paper. As ' criticism is the life of science,' I hope my remarks 

 may not be considered out of place in a journal devoted to subjects 

 which should only be considered with the strictest regard for the 

 sacredness of scientific accuracy." — W. Gyngell, 13 Gladstone Road, 

 Scarborough. 



[We should be very glad to think that the Angler's Column of a 

 country newspaper was on a par — as regards the matter contained — 

 with the articles in the F. N. Q. We hope it is so. — Ed. F. N. Q.] 



Fossorial Hymenoptera. — "On page 29 of the F. N. Q. (No. 5), Mr. 

 Oswald H. Latter, in the course of his article on 'Fossorial Hymen- 

 optera, asks an interesting question. After remarking that in his 

 investigations of the larders of certain Pompilidae he invariably found 

 the egg occupying one certain position on the abdomen of the paralysed 

 spider destined for the larva's food, he inquires, Why this position ? By 

 way of possible answer, he hazards the suggestion that in this position 

 (the anterior dorsal surface of the right side of the abdomen) the egg is 

 fairly inaccessible to the legs of the spider, should the latter recover 

 from the effects of the sting. 



