84 TRIPELENA FIMBRIA. 



year 1836, however, appears to have been singularly favourable to the appear- 

 ance of this insect, affording another example of those extraordinary, and never 

 yet sufficiently accounted for, irregular periodical appearance of certain species, 

 favoured, no doubt, by some atmospheric influence of which our senses allow us no 

 perception. The neighbourhood of Doncaster has, however, in most years pro- 

 duced some individuals of the species in question ; indeed, as it was only last 

 year that the proper method of procuring them, which I am about to relate, was 

 discovered, it is very probable, that more might have been obtained, if they had 

 been sought in what the experience of the past summer has proved to be the 

 proper manner. The locality in which they have been usually and chiefly taken 

 in this neighbourhood, is " Sandall Beat," on the north-side of the race-course. 

 The first living specimen I saw was in Melton Wood, near here ; it was beaten 

 out of a young Ash-tree, by the person who was with me. He did not see it at 

 first, until I pointed it out flying down into a corn field close at hand, and he 

 immediately recognised it as fimbria, having taken the species before, though I 

 at that time did not know it, but only remarked it as an usual Moth. Subse- 

 quently he found the specimen in the corn-field, and the following day I went to 

 Sandall Beat, as being the best known locality, in quest of more, and was so 

 fortunate as to procure four specimens ; nor shall I soon forget the pleasure with 

 which I beheld the first specimens secured, and in fine preservation. I did not 

 hear of any more specimens being taken at Melton Wood, and very few others 

 appeared to frequent the Ash, nearly all being procured from the Oaks. In all, 

 I procured eighty-nine, and many hundreds were taken by other collectors, 

 though nearly all in Sandall Beat. Most of mine were captured by my servant, 

 or by a gamekeeper who lives near the wood ; of the latter I bought many, and 

 he, seeing the demand the insects were in, thought it a good opportunity of turn- 

 ing his wanderings in the woods to some account. 



In former years, the noon was considered the best time for taking Triphcena 

 fimbria, as they occasionally fly then, particularly on sunny days ; but their 

 flight is then very rapid and wild, and by the tops of the trees, generally in a 

 straight line for a considerable distance. When on the wing, they much resemble 

 the commoner species, innuba and pronuba, on which account I have no doubt 

 they have often been mistaken. The best time to get them (and if I had dis- 

 covered this in time, which I now make known to others, I could, I doubt not, 

 have procured five times as many as I did), is in a very heavy, dull, or foggy 

 day, or even when it is raining fast. Then they will not fly off at all, when 

 the trees are shaken, or kicked, which is the way to get them out or down, but 

 fall down, either close by the tree, or slanting off to a little distance from it. 

 The heavier the atmosphere, the more apparently lifeless they fall down, and if 

 it is finer farther off, generally flying quite away when the sun shines brightly. 



