Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/208

180 death we now deplore—was, from his knowledge and opportunities, an authority of no mean order on his subject, there is no reason why Mr. Whitlock should not hold a brief in opposition. This he has done, and replied in a very trenchant manner to most of the views of Gätke; in fact, he almost traverses in detail the whole of that observer's work. The verdict must of course rest with those ornithologists who study the evidence on both sides, and though some of Mr. Whitlock's contentions seem to carry conviction, they are still so numerous that the old adage involuntarily arises, quod nimis probat nihil probat.

unostentatious and excellent work done by Miss Ormerod in the domain of economic entomology is to be found in that lady's Annual Reports of Observations, of which the twentieth, for the year 1896, is now before us. The cui bono? so frequently addressed to entomologists finds a sufficient answer in these Reports, and they bring us back to the well-known, but perhaps now too little read, pages of Kirby and Spence.

"The year 1896, like its predecessor, showed presence of many kinds of agricultural insect infestations, including in these crop, orchard, and forest pests; also infestations to live stock, and to Deer, though not in any instance to the extent of any one special attack being seriously prevalent over the whole of our island."

We find a good illustration and account of the "Red-bearded Bot Fly, Cephenomyia rufibarbis, which infests, in its larval condition, the nostrils and throat and mouth parts of the Red Deer. The authoress, quoting Dr. Brauer, states:—"The method of attack is for the flies to lay their small living maggots, in the early or middle part of the summer, at the opening of the nostrils of the Red Deer, up which they work, adhering by their mouth-hooks, until they reach the throat of the Deer, where they may still be found in February."... "The exit of the maggots takes place from early in March until April, through