1 1 6 The Scottish Naturalist. 



going to settle, it drops down all at once. Sometimes there is a slight brindle 

 of green on the wings, but not commonly. The caterpillar feeds on heather. 



Anisopteryx asscularia. — I find this species commonly on a privet hedge, 

 near my house. The eggs are laid round the twigs like a necklace or bracelet, 

 and covered with the fine down which forms the anal tuft of the female. I once 

 caught a male flying in cop. with the female : this shows how species with ap- 

 terous females spread from one place to another. 



Chesias obliquaria occurs all round here. It is a very late-flying insect, 

 and there is no use going to look for it before the dark twilight, i.e., about half- 

 past ten o'clock. 



Geometra papilionaria. — The larvse of this species pass the winter in rather 

 a curious manner. They are generally hatched in the month of August, and 

 feed till about the middle of September, when they are about half or five-eighths 

 of an inch in length. About the middle of September the caterpillar selects a 

 small twig (which it resembles very much in colour), and placing itself close to 

 the point, it puts a few threads of silk round its body, and fastens itself securely 

 to the twig. When the bud begins to swell in spring, the caterpillar eats it up ; 

 then it throws off its fastenings, and after roaming about for a few days, casts 

 its skin, and assumes a different appearance. It has five humps of a rose-pink 

 colour; but the rest of the body varies very much in different individuals : some- 

 times being dull straw-colour, sometimes dull pink, sometimes half-brown half- 

 green, and so on. The larva feeds on the birch or alder. — W. Herd, Scoonie 

 Burn, near Perth, May, 1871. 



Cucullia cliamomillaB in Fife.— On the 26th May, I took a specimen of 

 C. chamomillce at rest on a paling here. Chcerocampa porcellus has been abun- 

 dant here this season. In the last fortnight I have taken eighteen specimens 

 at the flowers of Rhododendron, while in the three preceding years I have seen 

 but two.— J. Boswell Syme, Balmuto, Kirkcaldy, 20th June, 1871. 



Chcerocampa celerio.— Spending lately a few days in Peterhead, I called 

 on the Rev. James Yuill, the Free Church minister there, when he kindly al- 

 lowed me to examine his very extensive collection of Lepidoptera, in which 

 he pointed out to me an excellent and finely-conditioned specimen of the very 

 rare moth, Chcerocampa celerio, caught in September, 1868, in Broad Street 

 of that town. Another specimen of this moth has, I understand, been also 

 caught in Aberdeenshire, in the parish of Fyvie. Mr. Yuill has also in his col- 

 lection two specimens, caught in the neighbourhood, of the Convolvulus Hawk- 

 moth (Sphinx convolvulij. — H. O. Forbes, Drumblade. 



The Bedeguar of the Rose.— I noticed a great abundance of this gall in 

 Ayrshire some weeks ago. In this neighbourhood it is not nearly so abundant. 

 —A. T. Scott, Perth, September, 1871. 



The "Devonshire "Woody Gall of the Oak."— This has appeared both 

 here in Berwickshire, and in Roxburghshire within the last year. It occurs also 

 in various parts of Northumberland.— James Hardy, Oldcambus, by Cock- 

 burnspath, August 28th, 1871. [Dr. R. C. R. Jordan, writing in the August 

 number of the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine gives an interesting account 

 of the arrival of this gall at Birmingham. He says, " In our own days Dreissena 



