2H'1 the kntomologist's record. 



Norway with a score or so of a Ihjdrocna, which Mr. Burrows identifies 

 as //. rriiuntoisis. This species has not yet l:)een actually recorded 

 outside the British Isles, though this is doubtless due, in the main, to 

 the fact that very few entomologists are competent to differentiate the 

 various members of the genus to which it belongs. The specimens 

 were taken at Moen (also called Mo) in the South Trondhjems-Amt, 

 70 miles S.W. of Trondhjem itself. Moen is in the valley of the Sura, 

 lat. 63", the latitude of southern Iceland. The insect occurred, mostly 

 at sugar, from August 16th till the end of the month, when we left 

 the locality. Both sexes came to sugar, occasionally in some numbers. 

 But though they came to sugar quite near the house, once only did 

 one present itself at light. This, however, was partly due to the fact 

 that Norwegian windows are not always made to open. Once a worn 

 9. was taken flying over a bearded-wheat field in the sunshine at 

 noon. Mr. Burrows firmly believes that the species is attached to 

 running water. Certainly at Moen this was the case. But we also 

 took the insect in the valley of the River Liddel, in Eoxboro'shire, N.B., 

 in 1909, and there it was occasionally found in numbers on dry hill- 

 sides. It is difficult to refrain from speculating on the probable food 

 plants of H. cnnanenxis. In the Liddel valley we frequently took the 

 insect on flowers of Scabiosa sp., and ('ardiiun palustiis. Of course it 

 may well be that these are only frequented by the imago and are not 

 the pabulum. Nevertheless some have thought that scabious will 

 prove to be the creature's food. This plant certainly occurred at Moen 

 with the thistles (hiapordini acaiit/u'inii and I'arditKs arre)tnis. ('. 

 pLilnstris also occurred. Not many plants are common to the dry grass 

 hills of Roxboro' and the damp low Sura valley. The Sura produced 

 dock [Hiniii'.r spp.), which is the food of H. nictitam, and also the 

 allied genus Fobjiioninn. Both these plants were absent from Liddel- 

 dale. One is perhaps led to conclude that the food-plant is scabious 

 or some thistle, unless indeed the larva is a general feeder, or a grass 

 feeder. — P. A. Buxton (F.E.S.), and D. A. J. Buxton, Fairhill, 

 Tonbridge. 



(CURRENT NOTES AND SHORT NOTICES. 



In the Canadian Kntoiiiohiijist, for August, Mr. C. H. T. Townshend, 

 of the Entomological Station, Lima, Peru, announces the discovery of 

 another species of jumping maggot, in the flowers of a species of cactus 

 {Cereua sp. ?) growing on the luire foot-hills of the Andes about 40 miles 

 from Lima. These grubs were capable of jumping from six to eight 

 inches from a hard surface, by curling the body until the head and 

 anal plate end meet, and then suddenly straightening the body from 

 the anal end. Specimens of the perfect insect; (Diptera) were bred, 

 and appear to be a species new to science, and constituting a new 

 genus, probable an aberrant member of the Sepsidae, but partaking 

 also of the characters of the Milichiidac. It has been named Acucnla 

 Kaltaiis. 



M. Forel, at the International Congress of Entomology in 1909, 

 computed the number of known species, races, and varieties of ants to 

 be somewhat more than 6,000. In a recent note in the Ann. 8oc. Knt. 

 lielf/., he gives a summary of his own collection showing that it con- 

 tains no less than 5,829 different forms, of which 8231 are quite 

 distinct species, Hence his previous estimate must be considerably 



