NATURAL ENEMIES 81 



Hewitt has reviewed the habits of one of the species 

 known as Chernes nodosus Schrank, which, he states, 

 is more abundant in England in some years than in 

 others. He quotes Godfrey (1909): "The ordinary 

 habitat of Chernes nodosus, as Mr. Wallace Kew has 

 pointed out to me, appears to be among refuse, that is, 

 accumulations of decaying vegetation, manure heaps, 

 frames and hotbeds in gardens. He refers to its occur- 

 rence in a manure heap in the open air at Lille, and 

 draws my attention to its abundance in a melon frame 

 near Hastings in 1898, where it was found by Mr. 

 W. R. Butterfield." Doctor Hewitt very justly calls 

 attention to the fact that it is not difficult to under- 

 stand the frequent occurrence of this false scorpion 

 on the legs of flies, in view of the facts just quoted 

 from Mr. Godfrey, since flies frequent such rubbish 

 heaps for the purpose of laying eggs, or he suggests 

 that when they have recently emerged from puparia 

 in such places and are crawling about while their wings 

 are drying their legs are readily to be seized by the 

 Chernes. In closing his account of this species he 

 writes, "It is obvious that the association [between 

 the Chernes and the fly] will result in the distribution 

 of the pseudoscorpionid, but whether this is merely 

 incidental and the real meaning lies in a parasitic or 

 predaceous intention on the part of the Arachnid, as 

 some of the observations appear to indicate, further 

 experiments alone will show." 



