128 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[June 



sailing beside the ship, a foot was used sometimes to shape the course, 

 which had been altered apparently by a flow or eddy in the wind, 

 caused by the sails. Of course, the wings and the tail were very often 

 used in conjunction with the foot ; but Mr. Spears never saw the foot 

 used when the bird was flying by flapping its wings continuously. — 

 Rod and Gun." 



Insecta— Hymenoptera. 



Notes. 



Aspilota concinna, Hal., bred fbom Homalomyia canicularis. — 

 I have been breeding, during the present month, a great number of 

 Aspilota concinna from an old nest of Vespa vulgaris, obtained last Sep- 

 tember, near Plymbridge. I have also bred a quantity of their host, 

 Homalomyia canicularis. — G. C. Bignell, Stonehouse, Plymouth, 

 14th May, 1 89 1. 



Perilitus falciger, a Parasite in a living Beetle. — This very 

 interesting species has been bred from Timarcha Icevigata by the Rev. 

 J. Isabell, who boxed three beetles brought to him at the Land's End 

 by Mr. Crawford, on the 30th March. On examining the box the 

 following day he observed that a number of larvae had escaped from 

 one of them, and on further investigation it was found that forty-one 

 altogether had left their host, twenty-three of which spun up in slight 

 white cocoons in the angle formed by the bottom and side of the 

 willow-chip box. Eighteen, however, had not sufficient strength, or 

 were injured by the occupants of the box, or may be the box was too 

 dry for them. Of tho^e that formed cocoons, nineteen emerged on 

 the ist May and following days. On reference to Marshall's " Mono- 

 graph of the British Braconidae," Part II., p. 76, he mentions that 

 " A specimen exists in the British Museum, ticketed in the hand- 

 writing of F. Smith, * the larva from a living Timarcha coriaria and 

 one specimen, a ? in the possession of the author, taken in North- 

 amptonshire.— Id. 



