CURRENT NOTES. 



217 



garden, but for a long time could not find out by what insect they 

 were laid. One evening last August, however, I was fortunate enough 

 to find the moth at work and it proved to be the common Tnnjhaena 

 prontiba. After this I several times watched the process and once, 

 while doing so, I observed a common earwig, so far as my recollection 

 goes a male, greedily eating the eggs which the moth had just laid. 

 It did not eat them quite so fast as the moth deposited them, but it 

 evidently made up in appetite what it lacked in speed, as the whole 

 batch, probably about 60, was consumed when I inspected the place 

 the next morning. So far as I am able to judge, the incident is not 

 of very common occurrence, at any rate, when the eggs are laid in 

 this peculiar situation, since several other batches hatched out and the 

 young larvBB, after eating all the egg-shell except the part attached to 

 the tarred string, let themselves down by a thread of silk to the ground, 

 doubtless to continue their lives in the grass. I may say that the 

 moth did not appear to be in any way conscious of the presence of the 

 earwig. I shall endeavour to observe the phenomenon this year again, 

 as these moths always lay their eggs on the netting. The above 

 observation was made at my home at South Shields. — Harry 

 Eltringham, M.A., F.E.S., 8, Museum Road, Oxford. July Sth, 1910. 



URRENT NOTES. 



We understand that Mr. J. C. Stevens will dispose by auction, late 

 m October or early in November, the best aberrations of Abraxas tjrus- 

 mlariata reared during the last three seasons by the Rev. G. H. Raynor. 

 Among them are some very striking insects, such as can only be 

 obtained by rearing the larvffi in very large numbers. 



Mr. Charles Owen Waterhouse, ex-President of the Entomological 

 Society of London, was gazetted C.I.S.O., in the list of birthday 

 honours in June last. His long and excellent service in the insect 

 department of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, is 

 too well-known to our readers to require any comment, and we feel 

 sure that his life-long interest in entomology will be continued in 

 spite of his well-earned retirement. 



Another instalment on " The plume moths of Ceylon," viz., " The 

 Orneodidffi," has been received from Mr. T. Bainbrigge Fletcher, 

 R.N., F.E.S., F.Z.S., no doubt our future authority on the world's 

 " plumes." It is an excellent piece of work, with preliminary notes 

 on the early stages (based on European species). Of the four known 

 genera in the superfamily Oniendes, Paella, Microsc/iiKinns, and 

 Triscaedia, the first and last only have been found in Ceylon. There 

 are some 40 species at present included in Orneodes, with remarkable 

 differential features, and no doubt capable of being grouped into quite 

 natural groups when the "all-butterflies-in-one-genus-/'rt7j'<7/o" stage is 

 passed, and more is known of their life-histories. 



Besides giving the original descriptions of the already- described 

 Cingalese Orneodids and their distribution and habitats, Fletcher 

 describes as new species — Orneodes montinena, i>. ischalea, (). pinalea, 

 O. jjostfasciata, and O. viicroscoiiica. The life-history of none of the 

 Cingalese species appears to be known, yet some, at least, ought not to 

 be difficult to work out. Of the new species, 0. iiionti;iena and <K 

 pustfasciata are excellently figured, as well as nine others of Meyrick's 

 species and one of Hampson's. We could have wished for one more 



