916 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
is fully a hundred feet in depth. It appears to be the moraine 
profonde of an ice-sheet formed in the extreme period of the 
Glacial Epoch, and consists of grey clay intermixed with frag- 
ments of chalk, and is full of boulders of Oolite, Lias, and some 
other rocks, which are often polished and grooved by ice-action. 
So rich is the surface that little or no land in the neighbour- 
hood goes untended, woods are rare and very small, and pasture 
ataminimum. Few more unpromising places could be imagined 
by the entomologist; and yet this garden, which was held by 
commendation by a freeman of Ely’s abbot in Saxon times, by 
Robert Malet in 1086, and has undoubtedly been under cultiva- 
tion ever since, produces things of interest, as I trust the 
following jottings will show. 
1. Dipteron preying upon Hymenopteron.—We all know the 
manner in which Hymenoptera take toll of Diptera; the nume- 
rous species stored up as food for their larve, as well as the 
single specimens so often noticed outside the nests of Aculeates, 
and the large numbers slain entomophagously by the parasitic 
kinds. But I can recall no record of retribution on the part of 
the latter, except in the case of the genus Dioctria. ‘'o-day 
(June Ist, 1914), I saw a small Empid fly sitting upon a 
bramble leaf, holding in its fore or its anterior legs a yet smaller 
insect. These I tubed, expecting to find that the prey was (as 
is most usual in such cases) one of the smaller species of the 
Dipterous genus Sciara. What, then, was my surprise upon 
discovering that it was a Chalcid of the difficult—and to me 
unintelligible—genus Hulophus, Geoff.! It was quite dead, 
though I could not see what part of its anatomy the Empid, 
which proved on examination to be J'achydromia minuta, Mg., 
had been sucking. 
2. “ These Animals Bite.’’—My wrist was seized by Anthocoris 
sylvestris, Linn., in no friendly manner, while I was reading 
in the garden at 9.30 p.m. on July 7th. His proboscis 
was firmly inserted through the skin and effected a small, sharp 
pain like the prick of a No. 19 entomological pin. He sucked 
my blood at his own sweet will for two minutes, possibly three, 
thereinafter I saw his face no more. ‘The result was dis- 
appointing; none of the throb induced by Cimex was expe- 
rienced; the small pricking lasted for fifteen minutes and then 
ceased; a slight blush at the point of insertion had faded in 
five, and nothing further was seen or felt. I have very rarely 
been the victim of Heteropterous onslaughts, and can recall no 
specific occasion since Capsus lanarius, Linn., was captured 
flying on July 21st, 1896, when it promptly turned upon me and 
caused my thumb ‘“‘sensations similar to those set up by Urtica 
diowca,” to quote my diary of that date. 
3. A Curious Aerial Dance.—Records of unspecified insects 
are often useless, but the aerial dances of Hilara species form a 
