58 
DR ALFRED E. CAMERON. 
clidse probably. In the majority of cases, dipterous larvae are attracted to those soils 
which are rich in decaying vegetable or animal matter. Some, however, will attack 
healthy growing roots, as witness the depredations of Tipula oleracea, Dilophus 
febrilis, and Chortophila brassicse. Many more examples of pest species might be 
cited, besides others suspiciously near the. border line. Observations require to be 
made in order to ascertain to what extent an insect species is capable of adapting 
itself to new feeding habits in the absence of the accustomed diet — whether, indeed, 
there may not be a certain faculty of accommodation of taste for healthy or decay- 
ing animal and vegetable tissues or matter. The author has on one occasion taken 
an almost mature larva of Tipula oleracea at the roots of grass with a partly 
destroyed Anthomyiid larva in its jaws. Had it mistaken the maggot for a grass . 
root ? Surely a novel diet ! 
Those samples wherein the weed species were rather common — Ranunculus repens, 
Trifolium repens, and Plantago lanceolata — seemed to provide better conditions for 
the activities of predaceous soil-inhabiting larvae on account of the lesser binding 
effect of their roots on the soil particles, than is the case with those grasses. So it 
was in these that species of Empidae occurred most frequently, but at no time in any 
great abundance, like the phytophagous Bibionid and Tipulid larvae. In those areas 
of the Alluvial Pasture which were sodden with moisture, they occurred not at all, 
but, otherwise, would be about equally represented in both fields. 
The herbaceous perennials of grasslands, by the death and decay of their leaves 
and flowering parts, add annually to the soil an appreciable amount of rotting vege- 
table tissue and humus, which serve to attract numerous scavenging Diptera and 
Coleoptera. The component species were in this respect very similar in the two 
fields, a fact which applies with equal truth to the species of humus-feeding Aptery- 
gota for which moisture is essential. Seeing that the Alluvial Pasture was grazed 
by cattle whilst Glover’s Meadow was undisturbed, one would have naturally con- 
cluded that coprophilous Coleoptera would have been scarcely, if at all, represented 
in the latter. As regards the larvae, this Avas actually the case, but, as Table X shows 
(samples Nos. 5, 6, 1 1 ), the imagines of Aphodius fmetarius occurred fairly fre- 
quently ; whereas, at the time of the census, no species of Scarabaeidse were taken in 
the Alluvial Pasture samples. As a matter of fact, Aphodius fossor, A. fmetarius, 
A. contaminatus , and A. prodromus occurred frequently at cow-droppings in the 
Alluvial Pasture. That A. fmetarius was taken in Glover’s Meadow may be 
accounted for by the fact that it may have been merely an invader sheltering or 
resting amongst the herbage. But some specimens occurred beneath the surface of 
the ground where, on several occasions, the remains of this pretty Scarabseid were 
met with. It is just possible that after oviposition in the autumn, the adults may 
burrow into the soil near where the eggs have been laid, or they may wing their 
way to meadows further afield previous to their demise at the roots of grasses. The 
presence of Sphseridium scarabaeoides in Glover’^ Meadow may be readily explained 
