5630 Insects. 



one in front of It, in the prothorax," read " on the prothorax " ; 5th line from bottom, 

 for "there are also ten black seta?" read "there are two black seta?''; bottom line, 

 for "8f lines" read " 2f lines."— Edward Parfitt ; Weirfield Place, St. Leonard's, 

 Exeter, April 4, 1857. 



Further Note on the supposed new CEstrus. — It is all come out and made clear 

 about the new CEstrus ; and T hasten to give you the particulars, as they are some- 

 what singular. I yesterday went to the British Museum, and was most kindly 

 received by three or four of the heads of the Linnean Society and of the Museum ; 

 and I am happy to say that the species to which Mr. Cooke's (Estrus must be referred 

 is no longer a mystery ; for the intruder is now found to be not a denizen of this 

 country, but a native of the Arctic regions, the country of the reindeer. The moment 

 my eye alighted on it I exclaimed, " Why, this is a foreigner, and is the male of the 

 CEstrus Tarandi, a very old acquaintance of mine,'' and a source of plague enough to 

 that animal ; and of its history some of the details may not be altogether uninterest- 

 ing. I visited Copenhagen in the year 1797, to see " le grand chien Danois" of Buf- 

 fun, that I might afford my worthy friend Sydenham Edwards a true account of this 

 magnificent animal; and I went northward about forty miles above Copenhagen, to a 

 palace there, on purpose to see the creature. On my return to Copenhagen I 

 inquired what insects were to be seen amongst them, and found the chief collection 

 belonged to a Mr. Sehested, and went accordingly to visit him. He very obligingly 

 showed me his collection. My eyes of course fixed on the CEstri, having just before 

 published my essay thereon in the ' Linnean Transactions ;' and what was my asto- 

 nishment to see six or seven very large species, of the existence of which I had not 

 the least previous idea. I returned to England, and had almost forgotten them, 

 when a few years after poor Sehested died, and his insects were brought to London, it 

 being supposed they would sell better here than in the poorer country where he 

 resided : they were purchased by Mr. Children, who, after some time, not caring to keep 

 them, had them put up for sale at King Street ; I bought the whole lot, and at 

 the pressing solicitation of Dr. Leach made him a present of a pair of them for the 

 British Museum. When I first became acquainted with the male of CEstrus Tarandi 

 I could not learn anything of its country ; but determined, as there he was before my 

 eyes, to afford him not a " local habitation," but " a name," I had him drawn and en- 

 graved; and the name I gave him, as having reference to the whole family of dis- 

 turbers of the poor reindeer, was CEstrus stimulator (see p. 69 of my Treatise, and for 

 the figure PI. I. fig. 28). Fabricius, not knowing what it was, had previously deno- 

 minated it Trampa, or rather pecorum. The way in which I discovered that this was 

 the male of CEstrus Tarandi may be briefly stated thus : — One day, examining the 

 male of CEstrus Bovis, which is so unlike the female, I observed that its palpi were 

 clavated, a character not found in the female. This induced me to examine the 

 female of Tarandi, and compare it with the newly-discovered male; and I found 

 exactly the same discrepancy to obtain between them as between the well-known 

 males and females of Bovis. The question still remained, How comes this Arctic 

 insect to be considered an English, or more properly a Scottish, species? "Why," 

 observed my friend White, at the Museum, " I can explain that : some of our noble- 

 men having parks in Scotland ornamented their domain with a few reindeer, and with 

 them came the said animal ; and so the whole mystery is unravelled." — Bracy Clark ; 

 18, Giltspur Street, April 23, 1857. N.B. This is written without glasses. [Mr. 

 Clark is in his eighty-seventh year. — E. Neivman.~] 



