NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 341 



no hesitation in asserting that nothing short of an appeal to the 

 Hague Tribunal will bring about the effect they desire. Edward 

 Saunders discarded Cyllocoris fiavoquadrimaculatiis, De Geer, 

 because it was too long a specific name. We are inclined to add 

 sic ; but each author is, at least for the nonce, a law unto 

 himself (unless he is suffering from an editor). Moreover, the 

 present system is inconsistent : it admits such generic terms as 

 PiezodoriLs, Tropicoris, and Acetropis, but rejects individuality to 

 Prof. Westwood's memory by writing westwoodii — this is surely 

 but a step short of rendering the name occidentaUsilvce ! Ento- 

 mological topics have become too specialized to often be of wide 

 interest, and we think nomenclature in all its aspects that most 

 fitted for general discussion, utterly bootless though it be. 



A contemporary publishes some elucidation of the cause of 

 the "humming in the air" so often heard on summer days, for 

 which Gilbert White and later authors have lacked an explana- 

 tion. That it is caused by dancing Chironomi shortly before 

 dusk is true enough ; but it is not confined to that hour, and 

 Mr. J. E. Collin is of opinion that the facts stated cover but 

 part of the ground necessary to clear up the whole mystery. 

 The humming is a very well-known phenomenon, and the author 

 of * The Caxtons ' has turned it to a philosophical simile in 

 ' Kenelm Chillingly ' (1873, i. 320) thus : — " I declare I know no 

 more why the minds of human beings should be so restlessly 

 agitated about things which, as most of them own, give more 

 pain than pleasure, than I understand why that swarm of gnats, 

 which has such a very short time to live, does not give itself a 

 moment's repose, but goes up and down, rising and falling as if 

 it were on a seesaw, and making as much noise about its 

 insignificant alternations of ascent and descent, as if it were 

 the hum of men." The devotee would answer with our author — 



" It is thou who art shoreless on every side, 

 And thy width will not let thee enclose content." 



C. M. 



NOTES AND OBSEEVATIONS. 



Mortality among Delphax (Ar^opus) pulchella, Curt. — The 

 larvae of this species of homopteron were in countless thousands at 

 the base of reeds and on the moist mud between them in Covehithe 

 Broad, on the Suffolk coast, last July, and the younger, less agile 

 ones appeared to form the staple food of every carnivorous insect 

 there. I saw neither Pcederus fuscipes nor Coccinella 19-punctata 

 actually prey upon it, but Bembidium, Nabis, and a micropterous 

 Alysiid (closely alUed to Alloea contracta, Hal.) certainly did so, for 

 in one or two places, where the base of the reeds had grown circularly 



