28 A. E. GIBBS — NOTES ON lEPIDOPTEEA. 



One of the chief features of Mr. Spencer's report is the good 

 work which he has been enabled to do at the electric light in 

 the neighbourhood of Watford, This light appears to offer great 

 attraction to moths, and Mr. Spencer tells me that on warm and 

 cloudy nights they come from far and near in great abundance. 

 On one such night he "pill-boxed" thirty-one different species 

 within an hour and a half, the commoner insects, such as 

 Xylophasia monoglyplia and Plusia gamma, literally swarming to 

 the electric light. 



Btjtteefmes. 



Mr. P. Latchmore, of Hitchin, records the unusual abundance 

 of orange-tips {Anthocaru cardamines) in that locality. They 

 appeared, he tells me, earlier than usual, and the lanes abounded 

 with them. Mr. S. H. Spencer says that he and his friend 

 Mr. Wigg found the larvae of this butterfly feeding on the seed- 

 vessels of Sisymbrium alliaria in Rouse Bam Lane on the 8th and 

 23rd of June. 



> Although 1895 could not be called a Colias edusa year, like 1892, 

 when the insect appeared in thousands, still many specimens were 

 observed. I have three records of its appearance in Hertfordshire. 

 Mr. Arthur Lewis saw one at St. Albans on the 18th of August; 

 and Mr. Latchmore tells me that it was quite common on the 

 banks of the Great Northern Railway at Hitchin, where Dr. Davis 

 caught eight or nine good specimens and observed many others. 

 One specimen was taken at Radlett. Mr. Latchmore also says 

 that the brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) was fairly 

 common. He remarks : " How well preserved they look when 

 they emerge from their winter hybernation ! How seldom also 

 do they air themselves in the previous autumn ! " The railway- 

 banks and ridings at Bricket Wood are favourite haunts of this 

 conspicuous and brilliant insect, which likes to sun itself on 

 a bright spring day after its long winter's sleep. Mrs. Harrison, 

 of Baraet, tells me that last year she first observed the brimstone 

 butterfly on the wing on the 22nd of March, which was a bright 

 sunny day with a temperature of S^Q". 



Mrs. Harrison has also been rearing that well-known insect the 

 small tortoiseshell butterfly, and has made a very interesting 

 observation with regard to it. She noticed that the autumn 

 brood remained a much shorter time in the chrysalis state than 

 the first brood ; pupation occupying from ten to twelve days 

 instead of twenty-one. 



Moths. 



Sphinges. — Turning now to the Heterocera, the Sphinges claim 

 our first attention, and at the head of the list stands the death's 

 head hawk -moth (Acherontia atropos). Mr. Harold Gatward reports 

 several captures of this insect at Hitchin, and Mr. F. Latchmore 

 had one specimen sent to him which was caught in a garden close 

 to the town. Mr. Spencer had a very damaged specimen of the 

 convolvulus hawk-moth {Sphinx convolvuli), an insect which is not 



