220 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



Evans records the capture of a single example of this species at 

 Ardpeaton, Loch Long, on 27th June 19 10. This appears to be a 

 new record for the Clyde area. A few specimens of C/irysome/a 

 hypirici, Forst, were taken in the same locality on 21st September 

 191 7 and are recorded in the same note. 



Abundance of White Butterflies in 191 7. In concluding 

 an article on the above subject 1 R. Adkin records his opinion that 

 the unusual abundance of White Butterflies shared in by Scotland 

 as well as England was due to the fact that in the autumn of 19 16 

 the larvae of, at any rate, the Cabbage White, were less subjected 

 than usual to the attacks of parasites, abetted by the fact of a 

 considerable immigration of foreign specimens from the Continent 

 across the North Sea and English Channel. 



Concealing Patterns on British Lepidoptera. J. C. 

 Mottram 2 is of opinion that the sharply-marked patterns on the 

 wings of many Butterflies are of protective value in that they 

 simulate the presence of several planes and so deceive the eye 

 that expects to view a flat surface. Ten Butterflies and 114 other 

 British Lepidoptera he looks upon as bearing such "disruption 

 patterns." 



Damage to Spruce and Larch by Aphides (Chermes). 

 The Chermes-group of complex " Plant Bugs " has been studied 

 by H. M. Steven in the woods in Southern Scotland, and has been 

 found to be widely present in plant nurseries from which these 

 woods are recruited. Although individually the damage of Chernus 

 and Cnaphalodes to the bark, twigs," and leaves of spruce and larch, 

 to which they are confined, is slight, in the aggregate, and 

 especially in less favourable situations, it is serious in Britain. From 

 his experiments, Mr Steven concludes that fumigation with 

 hydrocyanic acid should be employed in every case before the trees 

 are transferred from the nursery to the planting area, for once in 

 the latter, there is no known method of checking the pest {Proc. 

 Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 37, 19 18, p. 356). 



1 Entomologist, 1918, p. 56. 



2 Proc. Zool. Soc, February 1918, p. 251. 



