124 The South Australian Naturalist. 



Aniungst the data collected will ?je, not oiily the actual 

 distribution of the plants, but also the time of floAvering and 

 other information such as habit, etc. Moreover, collectors will 

 be asked to secure whenever possible seeds as well, and these 

 Mr. Bailey has undertaken to grow for us, so that eventually in 

 the Botanic Gardens we may see plots of our native flowering 

 plants — and many are most beautiful — labelled as being the 

 result of the activities of the Field Naturalists' Section of the 

 Eoyal Society. Here we have an opportunity for doing useful 

 work, valuable work, really important work. With many 

 hands and division of labour it is work of relatively easy 

 accomplishment. It is work that will bring real credit to the 

 section. It is work that no one and no body in Australia has 

 as yet attempted to do on a large scale. Let us get to work 

 forthwith and each one do his share to make the undertaking 

 a success. 



THE BREEDING HABITS OF THE "BACK-SWIMMER" 



(Anisops hyj)erion). 



(Herbert M. Hale, South Australian Museum). 



In a previous article published in Vol. ii. p. 54 of the 

 "Naturalist," mention was made of the family of aquatic bugs 

 popularly known as "back-swimmers." The members of this? 

 group are all of comparatively small size, and our largest 

 representative is about half an inch in length. Much has beeu 

 writtej. of the biology of some of the species, those of Noto- 

 necta, the type genus, having in particular received consider- 

 able attention. Nevertheless, until comparatively recently, 

 it Avas thought that all of the Neotropical Notcnectae attached 

 their eggs to the surface of plants with a pad of adhesive 

 material, but a worker on the group has proved that at least 

 three of the twelve American species have a long ovipositor 

 and insert their eggs in plant tissues. 



A revision of the Australian representatives of the famih- 

 together with a fuller account of the biology of Anisops 

 hyperjon, will be found in Vol. ii. of the "Records of the South 

 Australian Museum." The examination of a large amount of 

 material showed that Notonecta is poorly represented in Aus- 

 tralia ; indeed, only one of our species can be definitely assigned 

 to that genus, the majority of them belonging to Anisops; 

 the lajitnamed genus, although widely distributed, has been 

 neglected biologically, the life history of none of its species 

 liavincj been previously recorded. 



