210 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S IIKCORD. 



larvf© to leave it and find another. In order to build a nest there they 

 must all be together, and for the whole brood to fail to find a fresh tree 

 would not be more disastrous than for all to find trees, but only two 

 or three larvie to each new tree, quite unable therefore to spin a new 

 nest. The habit of pupating gregariously, at a distance, often very 

 great, from where they fed is, then, why the processional habit 

 developed. It is a une qua miii, without which they would inevitably 

 scatter helplessly. As explaining the processional procedure we accept 

 the gregarious pupation as a fundamental fact, equally important in 

 this regard, whatever may be its cause or object. That there is such a 

 cause or object there can be no doubt, and one can speculate what it 

 may be. Various habits and structures of pupre, almost always refer 

 to protection from enemies, and this .g-regarious habit probably has 

 that object. If so, our enquiry is narrowed to the question, How? 



They are certainly protected by the circumstance that the irritating 

 hairs which make the processionary larv?e so dreaded are loosely worked 

 into the outer layer of the cocoon, they retain all their irritating 

 properties but are so easily disturbed and float about, that to handle the 

 cocoons is a more unpleasant experience than to deal with the larvte. 



The massing of the cocoons makes it certain that any marauder 

 will suffer, possibly before he has done any mischief, but unquestion- 

 ably before he has injured more than a pupa or two, and the rest will 

 escape, nor will a second attack by the same or another enemy be likely 

 to do any further mischief. A solitary cocoon, on the other hand, 

 might easily have the stinging hairs rubbed oft", or not recognised as 

 injurious till the pupa had been fatally injured. 



Something of this sort will probably explain why the massing of 

 the pupre has been declared by natural selection to be the correct 

 procedure. — T. A. Chapman (M.D.), Betula, Reigate. Aiif/in^t dtli, 1915. 



Agriades coridon, Poda (Royston form). — It may be of interest to 

 record that I received eggs of this form from Mr. Newman last autumn, 

 and though, from inattention and other faults, I only reared sixteen 

 specimens, they present results that possibly bear on this curious form 

 of A. coridon. The two outstanding peculiarities of the Royston form 

 appear to be the excess of females, and more extraordinary the 

 frequency of andromorphous specimens amongst these females, for 

 details of which we are indebted to Dr. Cockayne. 



The sixteen specimens I reared were one male and fifteen females, 

 a remarkable preponderance of the latter, greater than any I have had 

 to explain \n any other species by any hypothesis of a greater mortality 

 of males in earlier stages. Though these females present several nice 

 forms, I do not detect in any of them any andromorphous tendency. — 

 Id. Avf/iist, 1915. 



Celastrina argiolus in AMERICA. — In the Kilt. News for July is the 

 following elucidation of the multiplicity of names which have been 

 ranged around the form of Cdastrina ariiiolus in America, by Prof. H. 

 Skinner. He agrees with the view that pseKdanjioliin of the American 

 continent is only a western form of the ayfiiclns of the European con- 

 tinent, since the genitalic work of Mr. R. C. Williams confirms it. 

 The list is as follows : — 



Argiolus, Linn. 



var. PSEUDARGioLus, Bdl.-Lec. (18H3). 

 neijUcta, Edw. (1862). 



