90 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and thivty-six in a day. Now to think that minute larvae 

 would satisfy the cravings of so large a bird as a herring gull 

 seems to me incredible, and the supposition given above 

 I think the true solution, and that minute larvae are not the 

 food of tliis gull. I have been asked how it is that the 

 putrid substances in which the larvae occur are not alwavs 

 found in the stomach with them. I have always answered 

 that decayed substances ai'e more rapid in their digestion 

 than fresh, the acids of the stomach and the acids in decay 

 causing very rapid evacuations ; this I have proved often 

 with gulls : and again, that things with life must first die 

 before the gastric juices can affect them ; consequently that 

 these larvae and pup^e would have to die first and then digest 

 before leaving the stomach, or, in the case of the pupae, 

 perhaps pass, after a time, entire from the body. Again, the 

 food of tlie gulls becomes triturated, if I may use the word, 

 to a certain degree, in the crop, before entering the stomach, 

 which process these insects and their food substance must 

 have gone through before even entering the gizzard ; the 

 matter in which the insects were, readily submitting to 

 this operation ; while the larva? and pupae, having life, 

 passed unscathed to the gizzard, from which I took some of 

 the larvce of the fly alive. It may be interesting to know 

 that the perfect fly in most cases left the pupa in the 

 stomach", the genial warmth bringing it to life and death at 

 the same time, for each fly had a corresponding empty 

 chrysalis-case. — Harry BUike- Knox ; 2, Vlverlon Place, 

 Dalkey, Co. Duhlin, March 23, 1866. 



Silvaiins hideutaius near Paidey. — I have taken, under 

 pine-bark near Paisley, a single example of a Silvanus which 

 Mr. D. Sharp informs me is the bidentatus of Fabricius. It 

 is half as large again as S. unidentatus, and more elongate 

 and duller than that species, having also the anterior angles 

 of the thorax much more distinctly and sharply spined, and 

 a short but decided spine on each side of the head, behind 

 the eyes. The thorax, moreover, is longer, and has two 

 shallow longitudinal grooves ; the joints of the antennae are 

 longer, and the tibiae are not dilated externally and obliquely 

 truncated, as in S, unidentatus. — Morris Young, 7, Old 

 Sneddon, in ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' January, 

 1866. 



