mei Py, THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
13. Rhogas pretor, Reinh. 
Another addition to our list. I had the pleasure of breeding 
a single female of this distinct species from a quite young larva 
of Smerinthus popult, fastened to an aspen leaf at Monks Soham 
two or three years ago. A single female was described by 
Reinhard in Sichel’s collection from Moutiers in Savoy; subse- 
quently the species has been recorded only by Szépligeti from 
Hungary. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
A DraGonFruy AS Foop For Diptera.—Early in July, 1915, Mr. 
R. South was good enough to give me a number of small Diptera 
belonging to the family Phoride, which he had found a few days 
before in a drawer of British Odonata. The species was kindly iden- 
tified for me by Mr. F. W. Edwards as Aphiocheta albicans, Wood. 
When first observed, the Flies, both living and dead, were concen- 
trated about a specimen of Libellula depressa, Linn. (now likewise in 
my possession), dated New Yorest, 1914, and investigation showed 
that numerous empty puparia were attached to various convenient 
points on the underside of the Dragonfly. In the‘ Cambridge Natural 
History’ Dr. D. Sharp states that the larvee of Phoride ‘live in a 
great variety of animal and vegetable decaying matter, and attack 
living insects, and even snails, though probably only when these are 
in a sickly or diseased condition ”’ (Ins. ii, p. 494, 1899). In the pre- 
sent case the larvae seem to have fed upon the contents of their 
host’s thorax, and a large perforation at the base of the pectus 
evidently afforded means of egress when the time for pupation 
arrived. The feeding of these little Flies upon their powerful and 
ruthless enemy strikes one as being quite a pretty example of retri- 
butive justice—Herrpert Campion; 58, Ranelagh Road, Ealing, 
March 11th, 1916. . 
FurtHER Note oN FoRMALDEHYDE.—Last year, in consequence 
of my notes on the use of formaldehyde for setting insects, Mr. 
Kershaw suggested that hypodermic injections might be useful 
(‘ Entom.’ 48, p. 19). Shortly after his suggestion I received some 
three dozen or so butterflies from the East Coast of Africa; they were 
very dry and stiff and difficult to relax, in fact most of them had to 
be forced into position on the setting-boards. As they were of a good 
size (about as large as V. antiopa) I telt that there would be no diffi- 
culty in injecting them. This I did with a 5 per cent. etherial solu- 
tion of formaldehyde, after they had been on the boards for a week 
or so, injecting the solution with an ordinary hypodermic syringe 
into the body on each side of the pin. One or two drops were sutfi- 
cient. I was glad to find that the specimens had set quite rigidly ; 
there was not the slightest tendency for the wings to slip back nor 
to droop or spring. Although the solution slightly diffused into the 
wing membranes they dried perfectly without any loss of colour. 
