1899] STRAWBERRY. 143 



parts are so thickly clothed with red hair as to appear like a red beard 

 running round the under part of the face, from which the fly takes its 

 popular English as well as its scientific specific name. 



The species is parasitic in maggot state in the nostrils, throat, 

 and mouth parts of the Red Deer. The flies lay their living maggots 

 about the early part of the summer at the opening of the nostrils of 

 the Deer, up which they work and travel onwards to the throat, 

 adhering by their mouth-hooks. Early in March (or till April) they 

 leave their host by dropping to the ground from the mouth or nose, 

 and seek some dark shelter where they change to chrysalis condition, 

 from which the fly appears in May or onwards until July, or possibly 

 later in Britain, as the above notes are the dates of German observa- 

 tion. The specimens which have been kindly sent me by Mr. Dugald 

 Campbell, Strathconan Forest, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, N.B., were 

 forwarded me early in June, 1896, and early in July, 1899. 



We have no notes as yet (so far as I am aware) of the attack being 

 injurious to us, but it is of some interest as having been unknown in 

 Britain until 1894, when specimens were captured in Strath Carron, 

 on the west of Ross-shire, N.B., only a few feet above high-water 

 mark, and the species was also captured by Mr. L. W. Hinxman in 

 the Cairngorm Mountains, in the county of Banff, in 1895. 



In the past season the specimen sent me by Mr. Dugald Campbell, 

 writing from Muir of Ord on Aug. 2nd, was accompanied by the note : 

 "About three weeks ago, while sitting at an altitude of nearly three 

 thousand feet above the sea level, a fly came and rested upon my head, 

 which I unintentionally killed in the capture." — (D. C.) The specimen 

 proved to be of " The Red-bearded Bot Fly," and in the case of a 

 species which has a capacity for being injurious, but which has been 

 so recently noticed as present with us, and is still so little reported, it 

 may be of interest to give an observation of its presence at the great 

 altitude named. ""^ 



STRAWBERRY. 



Ground Beetle, Bat Beetle. Harpalxis ruficornis, Fab. 



A few observations were sent me from Norfolk and Suffolk during 

 the past season of presence of Ground Beetles ; an attack which was 

 first noticed as injurious to Strawberry fruit at Woodborough, in 

 Nottinghamshire, in 1894, and since then has become much more 



* Beference to the paper by Mr. Percy H. Grimshaw, F.E.S., published in 1895, 

 in 'Annals of Scottish Nat. History,' and of exhibition of specimens by him at 

 meeting of Ent. See. in London, March 4th, J896, will be found, with information 

 on this infestation and figure from life, in my Twentieth Annual Report, pp. 56-59. 



