1913.] 177 



TmchypJdmis digitalis, Gryll. (anted, p. 126). — Mr. Newbeiy 

 records this species from the Chatham district and Boston. It has also 

 been taken at Streatley, Berks, by Mr. J. J. Walker in 1907. The insect 

 was found near Chatham in numbers by myself, on April 28th, 1872, and 

 in the following year by Mr. Walker in April and October. He has 

 also met with it in recent years in the same locality. It may be added 

 that T. digitalis is constantly smaller and narrower than T. spinimanus, 

 and has sh(.)rter, more depressed, squamiform setae on the elyt.ra, 

 whereas in T. spinimanns the seta; are longer and suberect, and 

 nearly as conspicuous as in T. niter nans. I can detect no difference 

 in the striation of the elytra, when the surface incrustation is removed. 



Horsell, Woking : 



Jidy 10th, 1913. 



EMPIDM AND THEIE PREY IN RELATION TO COURTSHIP. 

 Communicated by Professor E. B. Poulton, D.Sc, M.A., F.R.S. 



The following observations by Mr. A. H. Hamm, of the Hope 

 Department, Oxford University Museum, mil, we feel sure, be of 

 special interest to < ur readers. The account is reprinted from 

 Professor E. B. Poulton's Report on the Hope Department for the 

 year 1912 in The Oxford University Gazette for June 4th, 1913, 

 pp. 952-953:— 



" No more interesting and valuable addition to the bionomic 

 series has ever been made than the large collection by which Mr. A. H. 

 Hamm, of the Hope Department, has thrown so much light upon the 

 courtship of the Empid flies. 



Results so sui'prising require abundant proof, and it will be 

 admitted by any one who studies the series that the material both of 

 Empidse themselves and the insects captured or objects seized by 

 them, is of immense extent and most carefully collected, embodying 

 the results of a large number of original observations and most 

 ingenious experiments. The whole of Mr. Hamm's researches were 

 cai'ried out in the neighliourhood of Oxford. The great labour of 

 labelling and cataloguing was finished hy Mr. Collins in time for 

 exhibition at the Entomological Congress in August, 1912, where the 

 collection was studied with keen attention and interest. The catalogue 

 numbers— 591 in 1908, 771 in 1909, 718 in 1910, and 969 in 1911, 

 large as they are, give a very inadequate idea of the material ; for the 

 catalogue is of mounts rather than specimens, of which many are 



