216 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



may be interesting to quote what is actually said. In the 

 " Zoologist " for 1 844, p. 686, Hodgkinson writes : " A friend 

 of mine who lately visited the Isle of Skye observed a great 

 number of the larvae of a Geometra, very similar to those of 

 Abraxas grossulariata : they were feeding on the burdock, 

 on the summit of Ben Beckley, where he shot a rock dove 

 (Coluniba livia\ the crop of which was completely gorged with 

 them. A few of these larvae have since changed into pupae." 

 The following year (1845, p. 1006) the same naturalist 

 communicated the following note : " Caterpillar of Nyssia 

 zonaria in Skye. I formerly made a communication respect- 

 ing some larvae which were found in the Isle of Skye, by my 

 friend Mr. Cooper, of Preston (' Zool.' 686). I saw him last 

 week, and learned that a female Nyssia zonaria had come 

 out this spring, from one of the chrysalides that was un- 

 injured. I hinted to Mr. Henry Doubleday what I thought 

 they were. Now it is a question whether Nyssia zonaria is 

 indigenous to the Hebrides or not ; and those which have 

 been found at New Brighton, Cheshire, have been originally 

 imported thither among wool, etc., or rushes that have been 

 used to pack up fish with. My friend informs me that the 

 larvae were in swarms upon the sand-hills of Bernarah, and 

 several other islands which he visited." 



It will be seen that some doubt is here thrown upon the 

 question of the insect being a true native, especially in the 

 Hebrides. In view of the fact that it has since been recorded 

 from Tiree by Mr. William Evans (" Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist," 

 1899, p. 239) and from several places in Ireland, I think 

 there can be no doubt but that it is a truly British moth. 

 When referring to the Tiree record in his " Lepidoptera of 

 the British Islands " (vol. vii. p. 1 5 2), Barrett makes the 

 pertinent remark that " it seems possible that the creature 

 belongs naturally to this more northern latitude, and that 

 this may help to explain the failure of the species to 

 establish itself more extensively upon the English coast, 

 where suitable sand-hills are by no means wanting." This 

 opinion receives ample support from my experience of the 

 caterpillar in such vast numbers on the extreme west of the 

 Outer Hebrides, to which remote place its importation seems 

 inconceivable. 



