236 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



earlier or later I do not know — by Fieber as S. scholtzi, and 

 mentioned by Scholtz in 1847,* who says that it is larger than 

 minutissima, and has different habits, i. e. it lives in still water 

 with muddy bottom [minutissima does live here, though !] , not 

 in clear river water. He further mentions that he has not heard 

 a perceptibly audible chirp like minutissima utters. f 



I have never seen this alive, but Saunders states that it 

 occurs from Lincoln to Sussex, from Somerset to Norfolk. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The Habits of Asilid^e. — There are certain insects, such as the 

 Meloid beetles of the genus Cantharis, aud the Pentatomid bugs, which 

 appear to be generally protected from enemies by their disagreeable 

 odour or taste. I was interested to observe, when at Pecos, New 

 Mexico, that this protection apparently did not extend to the robber 

 flies or Asilida3. At Pecos I found a specimen of Ospriocerus abdomi- 

 nalis, Say, preying on Cantharis biguttatus ; and in the Pecos Canyon 

 (at 7300 ft. alt.) I found Stenopogon inquinatus, Loew, preying on adult 

 Thyanta perditor. In both cases I am indebted to Mr. Coquillett for 

 the names of the flies, and it may be added that both are new to the 

 fauna of New Mexico. — T. D. A. Cockerell. 



The Name Aldrichia. — With reference to the Culicid Aldrichia 

 error (cf. p. 142), it may be noted that the name Aldrichia is a homo- 

 nym, having been previously used twice — by Coquillett in 1894, and 

 by Vaughan in 1900. — T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Collecting Diptera at Light. — Being in the City of Washington 

 on the night of June 10th, I opened my window wide, hoping to get 

 some moths which might be of service to the British Museum. For 

 some unexplained reason, not a single moth appeared, but, instead, a 

 great number of small flies, all Chironoinidae. I collected a series, and 

 they have been very kindly identified by Mr. Coquillett. He tells me 

 that they are all common ; but little seems to be known of the distri- 

 bution of these minute things, as will be seen by the published records, 

 quoted from Aldrich's ' Catalogue of North American Diptera,' which 

 has just been published : — (1) Chironomus modestus, Say. Pennsylvania, 

 New Jersey, New Hampshire, Montreal, Canada. (2) Tanytarsus tenuis, 

 Meigen. Europe, Greenland. (3) Tanytarsus sp. (4) Tanypus bellus, 

 Loew. District of Columbia, (5) Tany pus choreas, Meigen. Europe, 

 "North America." (6) Tanypus monilis, L. Europe, Pennsylvania, 



* " Prodromus zu einer Ebynch. -Fauna von Scblesien pt. 1 " in 

 Uebers. Arb. Schles. Ges. Vaterl. Kultur, 1846, p. 106 (p. 2, sep. copy, 

 usually quoted). 



f " ob unsere art, gleichwie S. minuta, eindeutlich wabrnehmbares 

 Schwirren horen lasse, nabm ich bisber nocb nicht wahr." I have only 

 recently refreshed myself with this reference, which has been ignored in the 

 papers devoted to hemipterous stridulation. 



