222 (October, 



Crahro peltarius, I saw burrowing in the sand in the same locality 

 Mimesa hicolor, Oxyhelus unic/Iuwis, Andrena pilipes and alhicrus. 

 After the above remarks may I ask the question — Is M. leucocephala 

 a parasite on the wasp larva, or does it only consume the food pro- 

 vided for it ? 



Prom observations made at several visits to this field of sand, I 

 believe that M. leucocephala has taken the place of the ChrijudidoB as 

 a parasite on bees, &c'., in this locality, for I only saw one Chrysid 

 during my several visits to this spot in July and August. 



Stonehouse, Plymouth : 



August 24th, 1897. 



[In Rondani's " Rcpertorio degli insetti parassiti," Bull. Soc. Ent. 

 Ital., iv, p. 328, and v, p. 227, Miopia arfji/rocephala, Eossi, is given as 

 parasitic on Philanthus and Bembex. —Eds.]. 



HABITS OF SERICOMYIA BOREALIS, Fln. 

 BY THE EEV. E. N. BLOOMFIELD, M.A., F.E.S. 



In the year 1881 there was an interesting correspondence on the 

 subject of the habits of S. borealis; and in my letter, Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 Vol. xviii, p. 159, I asked, " Can any of your readers supply informa- 

 tion on its life-history ? " 



Until lately, I have had no response, except from Messrs. Swinton 

 and Ilellins, I. c, p. 189, but seeing a notice in the Naturalist's Journal 

 for May, 1896, by Mr. C. J. Watkins, of Painswick, that S. horenlis 

 had been bred, I wrote to him for further particulars, which he has 

 most kindly supplied, and he has also sent bred examples to the 

 British Museum. 



Three specimens were bred by Mr. W. Sim, of Gourdas, Fyvie, 

 Aberdeenshire, and Mr. Watkins has sent me several extracts from 

 bis letters. He says : — 



" I have succeeded in breeding the beautiful fly >S. borealis ; it comes from one 

 of the rat-tailed larvae. We were cutting peat turf for fuel in May, 1894, when I 

 found the 'long tails ;' they were in a shallow pool or puddle where fuel had been 

 dug the previous year. The turf was well covered with vegetation common to peat 

 mosses, and some of the sods being too fragile for wheeling away had been tossed 

 back into the pit, but turned upside down. It was in the decomposing mass that I 

 found the maggots surrounded by water ; their colour might be called dull grey." 



" I regret to say I did not see their transformation. I put them in a tin 

 canister half filled with damp Sphagnum, and though I examined them now and 



