296 Annual Report for 1912 of the Zoologist. 



consideration, but, nevertheless, it was determined to give the 

 ferments a fair trial, and the fruit-tree brand was tested in an 

 apple tree and the vegetable brand in the midst of peas 

 surrounded by various garden vegetables. Certainly insects 

 were attracted — though not greatly more than to the control 

 bottles of sugar and water — but there was absolutely no connec- 

 tion between the captured insects and the plant desired to be 

 protected, except that a good many wasps were trapped. Not 

 a single codlin moth was taken, though the apples proved later 

 to be rather badly attacked by this pest, nor were any of the 

 recognised pea pests caught, though several asserted their 

 presence during the summer. Besides wasps the insects 

 captured were chiefly flies of no particular importance, with a 

 good sprinkling of useful carnivorous beetles. 



Spiders are essentially carnivorous, and in some cases of 

 insect attack they have been proved to be distinctly useful in 

 reducing the pest. It was a surprise to me, therefore, when 

 I heard from Mr. F. V. Theobald that a spider had been 

 observed deliberately tearing up the blossoms of the cucumber 

 plant. The matter had been reported to him, and the fact 

 had been verified by him in his own study. The spider, 

 which he kindly sent for identification, proved to be Marpessa 

 tnuscosa, the largest of our British jumping spiders, fairly 

 common in the south of England. Its object in performing 

 this extraordinary act appears to be to gain access to the nectar, 

 which it sucks greedily. 



During the summer and autumn of 1911 and the spring of 

 1912 an important investigation of the food of certain birds 

 was carried out under mj direction at the Cambridge School 

 of Agriculture, though the credit for nearly all the laborious 

 work entailed belongs to Mr, John Hammond, to whom the 

 investigation was entrusted. The idea was to obtain a uniform 

 supply of the birds in question from a given district during 

 every month of the year, with a view to estimating their 

 bearing on agriculture the year through. The programme was 

 very completely carried out with regard to the feeding habits 

 in East Anglia of the starling and the lark — two birds about 

 which there is often a difi'erence of opinion, and the feeding 

 habits of which are believed by some to have lately undergone 

 considerable modification. 



The detailed results of the investigation are to be found in 

 the Joutmal of Agricultural Science for 1912. 



Cecil Warbukton. 



School of Agriculture, 

 Oambridge. 



