262 THE entomologist's record. 



probably feeding on a small blue-gray springtail (a species of Pseudo- 

 chorutes new to the British fauna), which was present in moderate 

 numbers. E. kunzei, Aub., E. piinctatiis, Mots., E. karsteni, Beich., 

 E. signatas, Reich., £'. nanun, Reich., E. saiiguineus, Den., E. piceus, 

 Mots., E. minutissimuH, Aub., and Bibloporiis bicolor, Den., are now 

 known from the Derwent Valley. — Richard S. Bagnall, F.E.S., 

 Penshaw Lodge, Penshaw. October 11th, 1910. 



Note on the occurrence of Dryoc.etes autographus, Ratz., in 

 THE county of Durham. — Some time ago I recorded having taken a 

 single example of Dnjocaetcn atitoi/raphiis by sweeping from Gibside. 

 In June of this year I found several examples under bark of small fir 

 stumps and fallen branches in a plantation near Westgate-in- 

 Weardale. — Id. 



W^ ARI AT ION. 



Dark-coloured larv^. of Papilio machaon. — It may interest your 

 readers to hear that the dark form of Papilio xiachaon larva, which I 

 have already noticed [Ent. liec, xx., 240, 266), was very common 

 this year in my kitchen-garden on the carrots. There were some 

 twenty in all that my children brought me, and everyone of them was 

 melanistic. Last year I found two or three of them on some wild 

 carrot by the woodside a little beyond the marshes ; the year before, 

 those I examined were found in several different places. In these 

 three years I have not found one that could be called normal as to 

 colouring, though, in 1908, one or two were not so far removed from 

 the normal type as all the others I have taken since then. It is, of 

 course, impossible to ascertain for how long this modification of 

 colouring has been going on, and what can be the reason for it in this 

 particular locality, is a question to which I find no satisfactory answer. 

 There can be no supposition about mimicry, or rather adaptation to 

 environment, in this case, for the dark-coloured larva shows out clearer 

 against the light green of the foodplant than does the greener typically 

 coloured larva. Unless we allow that a form with obviously 

 disadvantageous colouring ma}' become dominant in a given 

 geographical spot where one would least expect to find it, and this 

 appears to be absolute nonsense, I am naturally obliged to conclude 

 that it is a remnant of an older pigment, left here and probably else- 

 where, and that the big wave of adaptation has gone on in almost 

 every other district and has left behmd it this little puddle here. I 

 should be glad to have the views of some of your more enlightened 

 readers on the subject. — P. A. H. Muschamp, F.E.S., The Institute, 

 Stiifa. October Srd, 1910. 



:^OTES ON COLLECTING, Etc. 



Unusual emergence of Dimorpha versicolora. — Last year at 

 Strathpefler, on August 22nd and 23rd, a friend and I found ten 

 larvae of Dimorp/ta versicolora on some low-growing birch. We kept 

 these in a tin box with their foodplant and some dry moss. On 

 September 5th following, one showed signs of pupating, and by the 

 27th one had disappeared into the moss, although five were afterwards 

 found dead without having changed to pupa. It was not until 



