308 MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY 



prey with their legs and impale it with their proboscides, usually in the 

 region of the neck. They then return to some perch and suck out its 

 body juices. 



In Madras a small species regularly preys on Philaematomyia insignis, 

 when it is laying its eggs in cow dung. 



Kershaw has recently described the egg laying habits of a species of 

 asilid (Promachus) from the Kwantung Province of South China. The 

 female lays her eggs, about fifty in number, in a mass on long coarse 

 grass stalks, the bare ends of twigs, etc., about two or three feet above 

 ground ; she covers them with a thick gelatinous substance like that used 

 by some tabanids. The larvae hatch out in six or seven days, drop to 

 the ground and at once burrow into the earth ; it is not known exactly on 

 what they feed, but Kershaw thinks they live on subterranean coleopterous 

 larvae. 





