58 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 
selves in this country. I make no claim to any novelty 
in the remarks I have made. My main object has merely 
been to suggest the interest and importance of viewing 
bird-distribution systematically from this side, an aspect 
usually largely or even entirely neglected in our local 
faunal lists. There is now a large and enthusiastic body 
of botanists working on ecological lines, and it is impossible 
to doubt that a similar development in zoology must follow 
in the immediate future. In birds there is an enormous 
amount of detailed work of this kind to be done, and it 
is work clearly that lies to the hand of the field- 
naturalist. 
Importation of Greater Wood Wasps (Sirex gigas) to 
a Clyde Shipbuilding Yard.—Late in July and in the first 
few days of August 1920 several of these Greater Wood-wasps 
were caught as they emerged from their burrows in the wood 
of coniferous trees, probably of Scandinavian origin, which served 
as uprights supporting the scaffolding in the shipbuilding yard 
of the Ayrshire Dockyard Company, Irvine. My father brought to 
me three females, in excellent condition and alive, one of which 
measures 4.83 cms. in length, and five males averaging 2 cms. long, 
a consignment striking because of the unusually large proportion 
of male individuals, which as a rule are far outnumbered by 
the females, and are generally regarded as scarce.—ALEXANDER 
CUTHBERTSON, Yoker. 
British Blood-sucking Flies.—F. W. Edwards, in the second 
part of his valuable memoir on the British species of Szmuhum, 
Bull. Ent. Res., vol. xi., pl. 3 (pp. 211-246), describes the early 
stages, and gives observations on habitats, breeding season, varia- 
tion and blood-sucking habits. In many of the species two or 
three broods in the year are recorded, and one form (S. ornatum) 
appears to breed all the year round. The author has obtained 
sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption that all the British 
species may on occasion develop the habit of blood-sucking, 
regarding which there has hitherto been much doubt. A revised 
key is given for the determination of adult males and females, 
and similar keys for the identification of larvee and pupze. 
