2i6 
NATURE NOTES 
snails. I should be glad if one of your readers confirmed this, and also if he 
would kindly tell us if puppy dog’s tails are used as food ? The tails are usually 
bitten off, and it may be that the taste acquired in that way may lead the operator 
to make puppy-tail soup — we all know how excellent is ox-tail soup. Personally, 
however, I detest the very idea even of any dog’s tail being cut or bitten off, or 
that any animal should be mutilated in any way. The only use that I have made, 
as food, of snails, has been to collect them in my garden — where they do much 
damage to fruit and vegetables— and after cracking their shells, throw them to 
my ducks. Snails are much appreciated as food tor man on the Continent, where 
they are reared in damp places called escargotieres. 
It may not be generally known that in Germany and France, cockchafers — 
who do great harm in the forests — are used as food for swine, fowls and geese, 
being mixed with potatoes or starchy material (See Dr. Schlich’s “ Manual of 
Forestry,” vol. iv. , p. 184). I was much struck, whilst walking lately in the forests 
of the Austrian Tyrol, with the great number of dead cockchafers that were lying 
upon the ground. One of the best friends of the farmer and forester, in the way 
of keeping down the number of these destructive beetles, is the common rook, 
who plunges his powerful beak into the ground and devours the immature cock- 
chafer before he takes wing. It is very easy to find young cockchafers, as there is 
a small hole in the ground above them to admit air for breathing purposes. 
Many a time, when a boy at school have I dug them out with my pocket-knife 
and set them flying. I had to work by eye.sight, but the rook has also the sense 
of smell to help him to find the rich meal that the cockchafer affords him. Rooks 
are far too little protected in Switzerland and Tyrol. 
The mole devours the white cockchafer grubs at greater depths underground 
than they can be reached by the rook, who, however, gets plenty as he follows the 
plough. These grubs do perhaps more harm than the full-grown insects, for they 
feed on the small roots of trees, farm crops and vegetables. Starlings also are 
fond of the cockchafer grub. 
Les Collordailes, Montreux, Giles A. Daubeny. 
Sef’lewber 18, 1901. 
“ Flies?”— Allow me to give an explanation to Mr. New. What he saw was 
A colony of gnats. I have witnessed many similar cases. On one occasion a 
friend when walking with me declared that smoke, as it looked at a distance, was 
issuing from the top of a tree. I told him the cause, which failed to satisfy till we 
went to the spot. We then saw a colony of gnats, twelve or fifteen feet long, to 
leeward of the tree, waving up and down with the breeze and closely resembling 
a cloud of smoke. In positions like this gnats often play and amuse themselves 
for hours. 
Market IVesfon, 7 het/ord, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
October, 1901. 
“Flies?” — In answer to Mr. E. H. New, the “peculiar phenomenon” 
which he describes is undoubtedly due to swarms of insects on the wing. Whether 
this vapour or .smoke-like appearance, seeming to issue from tree-tops or church 
spires, is ever caused by insects other than ants I have not been able to find out, 
but that the phenomenon is often caused by winged ants appears to be amply 
verified, the species identified being Myrmica scabritiodis or one of its allies the 
ruginotis or IcevinoJis. 
At Great Amwell, in Hertfordshire, on a warm evening in August, I have 
counted as many as a dozen trees in a small fir plantation, each with its larger or 
smaller smoke-like pennant of living insects : these were winged ants, but I 
cannot say the species. I would refer all interested in this matter to a small 
and most interesting book by the Rev. W. F. White, M.E.S.L., entitled “Ants 
and their Ways.” It is published by the Religious Tract Society, and on pp. 68 
to 71 this phenomenon is dealt with. 
Richard Jefferies Branch. E. K. Loyd. 
Gnats. — If Mr. New will refer to Kirby and Spence’s “ Introduction to 
Entomology,” letter four (pp. 59, 60, of the one volume edition of 1856), he will 
find several instances recorded of swarms oi gnats taking the appearance of clouds 
•of smoke. It is probable that it was gnats and not flies which caused the appear- 
