LEPIDOPTERA AND HYMENOPTERA. 19 



and although I could only give an hour or two late at night, and that 

 only once or twice a week, the result was so conclusive that I felt 

 no more alarmed at the suggestion, " that the Fauna of Middlesex 

 had been so thrashed out that there was no need of the present 

 Society." In the first five hours of my hunting I found I had 

 captured in the imago stage alone over thirty species not men- 

 tioned in the list, and nearly sixty new species during the whole 

 thirty-six hours. What made the result also still more striking 

 was that I confined my hunting exclusively to my own garden. 



I now come to the second question, namely — "What is there 

 to catch in a county, a great part of which is covered by London 

 and its suburbs ? " It is with the object of opening up this subject 

 that I ask your kind attention to what I wish to say to you to- 

 night. 



Being engaged in the city all day till late, I had no daylight 

 hunting ; my evenings also were, unfortunately, very much engaged, 

 and during July, August, and September, I only succeeded in 

 getting altogether twenty-one nights for this object, which were free 

 from moonlight, east wind, ground-fog, and lime blossoms, and fit, 

 therefore, for hunting. My operations began between nine o'clock 

 and half-past nine and finished about eleven. I find by my notes 

 that of the twenty-one nights, I had fifteen of over one and a-half 

 hours, averaging nearly two hours each, and six nights of less than 

 one and a-half hours, averaging about one hour each. This makes 

 a total of about thirty-six hours, and in that time I reckon I 

 examined between 8,000 and 12,000 specimens of Lepidoptera 

 alone. 



Now with regard to the method of capturing these insects. 

 The net is of little use for night-work. I rely entirely on a glass 

 bottle, with cyanide of potassium, even for such large species as 

 Mania maura, Catocala nnpta, or Calocavipa vetiista. This, if 

 fairly fresh, renders the insect insensible in five to ten seconds. 

 The specimen is then at once turned into a similar bottle con- 

 taining bruised laurel leaves, which kill and keep the insects per- 

 fectly relaxed for a month if necessary. My usual plan, however, 

 when captures are heavy, is to pin them the same evening, placing 

 them in a relaxing box lined with cork to wait time for setting. 

 There are, however, some species which require the net, as they 



