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ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



FEBRUARY Uth, 1920. 

 Mr. K. G. Blaik, F.E.S., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. C. L. Withycombe, of Walthamstow, and Capt. Crocker, of 

 Bexley, were elected members. 



The Rev. F. M. B. Carr exhibited long series of Hibeniia defol- 

 iaria and its variations, and introduced a discussion on the species 

 of the genus Hibernia. He contributed the following note of his 

 remarlis-: — 



Notes on the Hibernias. 



" The five species under consideration are all of the commonest. 

 One has seen oak-woods stripped of their foliage by the larvae of H. 

 defoliaria, and I well remember a day in Dimminsdale, Stafford- 

 shire, when the birds flew off the stripped oak-trees, literally in 

 thousands, where they had been enjoying a diet chiefly composed of 

 the larvae of this moth. Yet, if one does not care to turn out on a 

 winter evening, it is quite easy to collect for years without getting 

 a decent series of this common species. The same holds good of 

 H. aurantiaria and H. rupicapraiia, so far as my experience goes. 



" Of H. lencophaearia, resting on the tree-trunks, and H. viar- 

 qinaria, which seems to prefer palings, one can pick up quite a fair 

 number in the daytime ; but, considering how common they are, 

 the other three species are met with very sparingly in this way. 

 And again, one can take hundreds of larvae of these species and 

 hardly breed an imago from the lot. Perhaps others have dis- 

 covered the secret of bringing them through — I must confess I, 

 personally, have had but little luck with them. 



" If one is to get a series, one must resort to night-work ; and 

 until I went to live in Cheshire, I had had little opportunity of 

 working any of the species by night. However, in the spring of 

 1917, I went round the hawthorn hedges just outside my garden at 

 Alvanley, and by the aid of a ' dim, religious light' (all that one 

 dared show in those days) I made my first acquaintance with H. 

 marciinaria var. fiiscata. The type, with which we are all so 



