78 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



and the figures reduced to natural size. The following notes 

 may be of interest : 



Mamestra nimbosa. Rare, at sugar. 



Cerma cora. May and June in Delaware ; August, Hamlet, 

 N. C., at sugar. 



Zale horrida. Common at sugar, May, June, July and August, 

 in Delaware ; also at Hamlet, N. C. , in August. 



Cirrcedia pampina. September, at sugar. 



Mamestra adjuncta. Bred. Larva entered ground June 25th ; 

 moth emerged August 5th. 



Melipolis limbolaris. Apparently rare here. 



Moma fallax. Sugar and electric light. June and July in 

 Delaware, and at Hamlet, N. C.. in August. 



Chamyris cerintha. Not uncommon, May and June. 



Poaphila quadrifilaris. Locally common, Delaware and 

 Maryland, in May, June and July. 



Agnomonia anilis. Milledgeville, Ga., August 3d and 4th. 

 This insect strikingly resembles the preceding species, not only 

 in appearance (both are velvety brown, band with white), but 

 also in habits of flight ; both species are usually rather difficult 

 to approach, flying readily by day, with a quick, dodging flight. 



A GREEK fable says that one day two players on the cithara, Eunoinus 

 and Ariston, making a trial of their skill, one of the cords of Eunomus's 

 instrument breaking, a cicada flew down and perched upon it and replaced 

 the sound with such success that it carried off the palm of victory. It 

 appears that the boys of Provence, according to Perrin, captured the 

 cicada by holding behind the singing insect a long reed and whistling 

 without interruption an air. Gradually the cicada descends, walks along 

 the reed, and finally reaches the hand of the whistler, who has only to 

 close his fingers to capture the insect. This story was called out by a 

 recent communication by Professor Lataste, of Santiago, Chile, to the 

 Entomological Society of France, who describes the way in which tin- 

 Chilean boys capture cicadas. They clap their hands on a cord or rhythm 

 more or less like that of the song of the cicada, when it alights on the 

 boy's back, on his hat, and soon perches on his hand. Dr. Horrath tried 

 the experiment himself on the shores of the Adriatic on two large cicadas. 

 Rapidly clapping his hands at the foot of an olive tree in which a cicada 

 was singing, the insect, usually timid and shy, did not interrupt its song, 

 but went on with it, and soon leaving its perch it descended down the 

 trunk near the observer, and seemed so hypnotized by the clapping, that 

 he could almost touch it without its flying away. This shows that it is by 

 the sense of hearing that it notices the clappings of the hands. 



