248 f^P"^' 



bottom and wire gauze top, and a cylinder of tin fitted up the middle, through 

 •which I can pass a pole to hoist it. This carries four meteor parafine burners, and 

 •will sho'w a splendid light for an oil lamp. The smaller one has two burners only, 

 and takes to pieces, packing up into a space of 12 inches by 8 by 5. With this 

 strapped on my back, I am able t'wice or thrice a •week in the summer time to 

 spin over on my bicycle to Ran-worth or Barton, or some other of the Norfolk Fens 

 or •woods, enjoy a delightful night's •work till t^wo a.m., snatch a couple of hours' 

 sleep in a boat — a reed stack in the fens — or some convenient cottage, and ride home 

 to business in the early morning. Of course this is too laborious to be regularly 

 done — t^wo successive nights always knock me up ; and I am anxious that the method 

 should be fairly tried by some one whose leisure or situation permits him to do so 

 with less labour than it costs me. I am quite convinced that any of the Bomhyces 

 or Deltoides which, though they can be assigned to definite localities, e. g., G. ilicifolia 

 in Cannoch Chase, or Madopa salicalis in the woods of Surrey, are yet rare from 

 our ignorance of how to catch them, might be certainly obtained by patient trial of 

 this plan. 



I cannot conclude these notes without some allusion to the three brighter 

 lights — Electric, Magnesium, and Oxy-Hydrogen lime light. It might naturally be 

 expected tliat these more powerful means would be proportionately more productive 

 of insects, and Mr. Thornthwaite has shown this to be the case. Hitherto I have 

 not tried them myself, chiefly on account of the cost of maintaining any of these, 

 and the weight of apparatus required, certainly for the first and last, and will 

 therefore not trespass on the ground of another. I have, however, said enough I 

 hope to convince beginners (and it is of course for their benefit that I write) that 

 they •will do well to add this to their other ways of collecting. I can only add that 

 I shall at any time be most happy to render any assistance I can to those who wish 

 to try it. — F. D. Wheeler, Norwich : March 14th, 1877. 



Description of the larva of Axylia putris. — In the summer of 1875, Mi". Owen 

 Wilson, of Carmarthen, found a $ imago of this species amongst lettuce. As it 

 deposited eggs, he tried the young larva; on the above-named plant, to wliicli they 

 took with evident relish. At the end of July, he kindly forwarded half-a-dozcn of 

 them to me, when I found they had already attained a length of three-quarters of 

 an inch. They grew nipidly, and, by August 9th, were nearly an inch and a half 

 long, and rather plump. The head has the lobes rounded, but is rather flat on the 

 face, it is narrower than the 2nd segment, into which it can be partially withdrawn. 

 Body of nearly uniform width, but ratlier sharply attenuated from the 4th segment 

 to the head ; the 13th segment also small, and rounded off rather bluntly ; each 

 segment has a transverse dorsal ridge. Segmental divisions deeply cut, dividing the 

 body into distinct sections ; skin soft. 



Ground colour dingy, dirty brown, strongly varied with equally dull, dark 

 green ; head highly polished, dark brown. A dark green pulsating vessel forms the 

 medio-dorsal stripe, and a fine, undulating, yellow line the sub-dorsal ; there is a dull 

 pinkish band along the spiracular region, becoming, however, dull yellow and wider 

 from the 10th segment to the base of tlie anal prolcgs : on the sub-dorsal region is 

 a series of oblique yellow marks, edged abov^ with dull green, the green edging 



