100 CORRESPONDENCE. 
Correspondence. 
Mipitanp Entomotocy.—I am pleased to find that the subject of 
“‘ Midland Entomology ” is being ventilated in the pages of the “ Midland 
Naturalist.” It is now many years since Mr. F. Plant and myself 
worked this county for Coleoptera. My own reason for abandoning the 
local for a wider field was the persistent impediments placed in the way 
of our working all the best hunting grounds, the rich and extensive 
woodlands owned by the present Earl of Stamford. Previous to my own 
and Mr. Plant’s career, the county had been assiduously worked by my 
brother, (H. W. Bates,) and in happier times, before the decease of the 
late earl, when free access to all the best localities was unimpeded. The 
collections then formed are now all scattered. The neat and handsome 
little collection of Mr. Plant was offered at a cheap rate to our Museum, 
but was not taken ; the committee I suppose not being able to discern any 
value in “ beetles,” even although they were a part of our local fauna, the 
obtaining of which ought to be one of the prime considerations in the for- 
mation and management of a local museum. [This was five-and-twenty 
years ago. They would know better now.—Eps. M. N.] Fortunately, 
before this dissemination of our local collections took place, a catalogue 
of all the known Leicestershire species of Coleoptera was compiled by 
myself for publication in Mr. Potter’s ‘‘ History of Leicestershire.” From 
some unexplained cause this history never came to anything, there not 
being, I believe, sufficient subscribers obtained to defray the mere cost of 
its production. A reference to that catalogue, incomplete as it is, will 
show that our county is quite up to the average in the production of rare, 
curious, and interesting species. [By the kindness of Mr. Bates the MSS. 
of this catalogue has been placed for reference in the Library of the 
Leicester Museum.—Eps. M.N.] The occurrence of a local variety of the 
grandest of all British beetles, the Calosoma inquisitor, is of itself 
sufficient to tempt investigators to court instead of ‘to shun as they 
would the plague” our local hunting grounds. Tropideres sepicola and 
Trachodes hispidus also occur to me, the former being new to the British 
fauna at the time of its capture; and the latter amounting to a 
re-discovery. I am glad to find amongst us a Coleopterist of the evident 
calibre of Mr. Robson, whose acquaintance I shall be happy to make.— 
Frepx. Bates, Leicester. 
DovusE-HEADED Saumon.—Among some embryo salmon I have lately 
watched hatching from the spawn, several have shown abnormal develop- 
ment, and I have just found one with two heads, attached together by 
the neck, so that it has four eyes, but only two sets of gills, and one heart. 
In fact all the posterior parts are of the usual normal form of a single 
fish.—THos. Bouton. 
Aquaria.—My experience is that H. M. need not trouble himself as 
to what he shall feed his fish with in the winter season, for they do not 
need feeding during the cold weather. Roach, Dace, and Minnows thrive 
the best with me. Perch soon die. In the summer small red worms 
thrown in are soon disposed of, and either in summer or on mild days in 
winter, when the fish are extra active, bread pressed between the finger 
and thumb and dropped in after making into very small pellets is readily 
taken. A piece of raw meat suspended by a string from a little bit of 
wood will afford amusement, and should H. M. be blessed with blood- 
thirsty beetles he will probably find that it will be a source of great 
satisfaction to them.—C. L. 
TnistLEs.—Two years ago a fox covert near here (Ravenstone) was 
cleared of its underwood, to allow fresh to grow up, and the greater part of 
