LEPIDOPTERA AND HYMENOPTERA. 27 



tree that it is very difficult to discover them unless the little 

 mounds are tried with a penknife ; others, and by far the larger 

 number, bury themselves in the ground, spinning the particles of 

 earth together, and in that house or coffin pass the winter until the 

 warm spring weather brings them to maturity and they come forth 

 perfect insects. If a locality or a county is to be worked tho- 

 roughly, digging for pupae must be pushed energetically ; it is a 

 very fascinating pursuit, and would give subject enough for a paper 

 by itself. You see, perhaps, a fine old oak tree situated in the 

 centre of a field, well away from any hedge or underwood, and 

 having several sheltered corners formed by the roots. It is a 

 bright day at the commencement of September, and you prepare 

 yourself for the attack ; a small trowel is inserted within 

 a few inches of the trunk well into the angle, and a sod 

 is turned up and examined. By tapping the sod gently, the 

 chrysalides will fall out of their earthen retreats, and by 

 careful examinations of the trunk as well, many of the follow- 

 ing, all of which I have taken in more or less abundance by this 

 method, may be found : — A. Aprilifia, in abundance, H. penna- 

 ria, H. protea, C. ridens, D. dodoncva and chaonia, P. pilosaria, 

 T. i?istabiiis, cruda, inunda, gotlnca, and miniosa, N. trepida, 

 H. aura/itiaria, A. prodromaria and A. hctidaria. Other trees, 

 such as elm, lime, alder, ash, poplar, willow, beech, etc., all have 

 their special crysalides, and may be examined with success from 

 September to April. I used to be very fond of this mode of 

 capture, and seldom had less than 3,000 to 4,000 pupae in my 

 breeding cages during the winter months. A. Aprilina will be 

 the first to fall to the trowel if digging round an oak tree. I once 

 took 25 pupce of this beautiful moth in a single crevice of an oak 

 in Betchworth Park, and it was a rare occurrence for me after a 

 day's pupa hunting to return home with less than a dozen or so of 

 this species. 



I have now said all I have to say about the Lepidoptera. In 

 the cases on the table you will find all those specimens which I 

 captured during the thirty-six hours of my experimental hunting, 

 and it will probably be more interesting to you to see them than 

 to hear them read out. I have not yet touched on the Hymetiop- 

 tera, but I find my remarks have considerably outrun the limit of 



