Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/120

94 Slater on the egg-carrying habit of a water-hemipteron. It is a well-known fact that certain bugs of the family Belostomatidæ carry their eggs on their back until they are hatched. This has been frequently observed in the case of Zaitha fluminea, common in the Atlantic States. It has been taken for granted by all who have described this habit that it is the female that carries the eggs, and it has been authoritatively stated that she places them on her back by the aid of her ovipositor. Miss Slater, by dissection, has found that all the egg-carrying specimens belonged to the male sex, and from observations made by the aid of an aquarium found that the male was frequently a most unwilling bearer of these burdens of reproduction. Her observations "indicate that the female is obliged to capture the male in order to deposit the eggs. Upon visiting the aquarium one afternoon a male was found to have a few eggs upon the caudal end of the wings. There was a marked difference in the colour of these, those nearest the head being yellow, while those nearest the caudal end were dark grey. The small number of the eggs indicated that the female had been interrupted in her egg-laying, and the difference in colour of the eggs that the process must be a slow one. For five hours I watched a silent unremitting struggle between the male and the female. Her desire was evidently to capture him uninjured. She crept quietly to within a few inches of him, and there remained immovable for half an hour. Suddenly she sprang towards him; but he was on the look-out, and fought so vigorously that she was obliged to retreat. After this repulse she swam about carelessly for a time, as if searching for food was her only thought. But in ten or fifteen minutes she was back in her first position in front of him. Again there was the attack, and again the repulse. The same tactics were continued until midnight, when, despairing of her success, I left them. At six o'clock the next morning the entire abdomen of the male and half of the thorax were covered with eggs. Those nearest the head were quite yellow, showing that the struggle had just ended."

Marquis of Lorne has imported some Wild Turkeys from Canada, and turned them loose in Argyllshire. They are doing well, and Turkey-shooting may become an attraction of the Highlands.—Sun.

Secretary of State for the Home Department has made the following Order under the Wild Birds Protection Acts, 1880-1896, for the Protection of Wild Birds and Wild Birds' Eggs within the County of London.