Weihaiwei, Sept. 18.—Strange letters come to me at times, and I was amused the other day to receive a little package—a matchbox car fully wrapped in paper marked "Livestock' together with the following note: "I read some time ago your notes about Ant-lions. There is a creature in this box that may be a spider, but he was waiting outside an ants' nest I have been watching. He attacked the ants (they were small ones) as they went on their lawful affairs, and when passers-by were rather few he went down to the opening of the nest and grabbed-off some right at the door of the nest. I saw him eat five in quick order: Yours ete..." A postscript to this letter said that the writer did not know Kingfishers operated in salt water, but he had just seen a beauty down on the beach, (I think he was referring to the bird.) The answer to the P. S. is e: as I have often pointed out that migrating King. fishers are frequently seen feeding on the seashore: they will also leave the fresh water in winter (when it is frozen) and resort to the coast-line for their food. But the answer to the main question is beyond me. The "Livestock" was very much alive when the little box was opened: its first act was to disappear through the top of a cane table, to be discovered later lowering itself to the ground by a strand of web: recaptured, it proved to be a black ant-like creature, with six legs and short mandibles very, suitable for grabbing prey: it was about pin. of an inch long, and thicker in the body than an ant: when tried out at an ants' nest it ran away and disappeared in the grass. It was, of course, nothing whatever to do with an ant-lion...I can only think of the late Mr. Barnum's freak called "Zip or what is it?" Perhaps some wiser naturalist can oblige with its identification—z-s.w,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.