12 [January, 



clothed with fine downy golden-yellow hair ; the thorax in the male is darker, and 

 somewhat bluish-grey, in the female it is bright silvery bluish-white ; it is spotted 

 and streaked with black, especially conspicuous being a broad, dead-black, and some- 

 what quadrate patch in the median line in front of the scutellum ; the abdomen is 

 black, with shimmering silvery markings ; the legs are yellowish-brown, and the 

 femora have a dark streak on the posterior side. The length of the fly is from 13 

 to 14 mm. (6| lines). 



Hypoderma Diana , Brauer. — This is a little greyisii-brown species, 

 smaller than H. Uneatum, Vill. (the common cattle gad-fly), and 

 according to Brauer its larvae are parasitic upon the red deer and the 

 roe, being found in cysts (warbles) beneath the skin of the back, 

 chiefly in the vicinity of the spine. Brauer states (" Monographic," 

 pp. 115 — 117) that the insect is on the wing in May, in Northern 

 Germany later, and until August. The length of the male is 11 mm. 

 (5i lines), that of the female 12 mm. (not including the ovipositor). 

 Full grown larvse are to be met with from February to .\pril,and they 

 leave the host from the beginning of March until the latter month. 



According to evidence from a firm of leather merchants, published by Miss E. 

 A. Ormerod ("Report of Observations of Injurious Insects," 1896, pp. 134 — 139), 

 in Scotland red deer and roe are both troubled with the attacks of Rypoderma 

 larvae, though the former are by far the greatest sufferers in this respect. The firm in 

 question (Messrs. R. and J. Pullman, 17, Grreek Street, Soho Square, London, W.) 

 even goes so far as to say that : — " The Scotch red deer pelts are all more or less 

 infested with marks of ' bot.' " To judge from the pelts, hinds are attacked much 

 more severely than stags, but this is due to the fact that the stags are killed earlier 

 in the season, before the larvae have come to maturity. The same firm states that 

 bot- or warble-marks " have never been noticed on the pelts of fallow deer,"* but 

 that, " The Scottish roe deer pelts are frequently seen very badly ' bot-marked j' but 

 the ' bot-holes ' are smaller than in the red deer pelts, and some are so full of small 

 ' bot-holes ' it seems as if a charge of shot had riddled the pelts." No Scotch 

 specimens of deer gad-flies have yet been bred, but Miss Ormerod, after examining 

 a number of maggots taken from the hide of a young red deer, considered that they 

 might " be very safely referred to the second stage of the larvae of the Hypoderma 

 Diana, Brauer" {pj). cit.,^. 137). On the other hand we have the remarkable 

 statement as to the smaller size of the bot-holes in the roe deer pelts. If this is 

 really the case, it can only be explained in one of two ways : either the roe deer are 

 killed at a period when the Sypoderma larvae with which tliey are infested are not 

 so far advanced as those in the hides of the red deer at the time the latter are shot ; 

 or we have in this country two species of Hypoderma, one of which is parasitic upon 

 the red deer, the other upon the roe. In the latter event the British roe deer 

 parasite may prove to be Hypoderma Diana, while the persecutor of the red deer 

 may be found in Hypoderma Actceon, Brauer. 



According to the author, this species, which is 13 mm., or just over 6 lines in 



* Of. supra, p. 11, note. 



