WING MEASUREMENTS OF LEPIDOPTERA. 69 



anywhere, but there were no dead ones to be found. I put a Formica 

 riifa in the nest. They attacked and chased her out. September 1st, 

 at 10.0 a.m. I found two more L. uwbratns on the flags, and put them in 

 the nest. The first /.. fiili;iinosi(^ they met greeted them as friends. 

 At 10.80 p.m. both at home in nest. At 11.0 a.m. one inside, the 

 other not visible. At 11.30 a.m. both inside. At 2.0 p.m. ditto. 

 I visited the nest at 4.0 p.m., 5.0 p.m., and 6.30 p.m., and found both 

 all right, one helping to clean the larvce. September 2nd, at 9.30 a.m. 

 one was dead, but showed no signs of having been damaged. The 

 other one was all right. At 7.0 p.m. the remaining ant all right. 

 They had removed the dead one. September 3rd, at 10.0 a.m. the ant 

 still in nest, quite at home. September 4th, ditto, at 9.50 a.m., 

 1.5 p.m., and 6.30 p.m. September 5th. at 10.45 a.m., the L. uiiibratita 

 was dead, though apparently uninjured. I was unable to continue 

 these experiments from this date. 



About one ant in eight in this nest of Lasius fulir/inosus carried an 

 AntemiophoniR-'. Some had white parasites located on the back of the 

 thorax. There was also a number of small red spider-like mites which 

 ran about among the larva^, and some larger parasites, about the size 

 of an Antennophnrux, among the larvae, sometimes on a larva, but not 

 attached to it. 



Wing Measurements of Lepidoptera. 



By .T. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



I have recently been much interested, and not a little disturbed, 

 by my inability to make the measurements (wing expanse) sent 

 to me by some of my esteemed continental correspondents tally 

 with others of the same species, which I myself supposed were 

 accurate for the same districts, in some of which I had worked. A 

 little enquiry soon elicited the fact that measurements cf wing-expanse 

 are generally made by continental lepidopterists not from the centre 

 of thorax to the wing-apex on either side (or from the centre of 

 thorax to one wing-apex x 2) as in this country, but across an 

 imaginary line drawn in front of the set insect from the apex of one 

 forewing to that of the other. This, of course, not only cannot give 

 the real expanse of the insect, but it is sometimes so much less than 

 the real expanse that one forms an entirely erroneous idea of the size 

 altogether. In some specimens of of A. coridon in question, in which 

 the real wing-expanse amounted to 38mm. -40mm., the measurements 

 from wing-apex to wing-apex was fully 6mm. less when measured 

 across in continental fashion. 



Another matter has discovered itself. It appears that some of our 

 own collectors, in giving information re insects set to shovr the under- 

 sides, speak of the wings as left or right exactly as they appear in the 

 underside insect. Of course, set to exhibit the underside, the true 

 right wings are on the left side of the pin and rice versa, but they 

 remain the true right and left wings nevertheless, and should be so 

 called. Great muddle might otherwise occur (possibly has already 



* The species would be Antennophorus grandis, Berl. It was described by 

 Berlese in 1903 {Rcdia, i., 1903, p. 392). I took it at Wellington College, in 1006, 

 with its host, Lasiux fulii/iiui.oi^, and have since found it with the same ant in 

 various localities, and recorded it as new to Britain (Ent. Ecc, 1907, p. (i). It will 

 be seen that Mr. Crawley observed it in 1898. — Horace Donisthorpk. 



