330 [December, 



or sometimes spots, along the hind-margin at the upper-side, and a female with white 

 central spot on the hind-wings. These variations, light and dark, from the same 

 remote locality, are highly interesting and instructive. — Id. 



3Ielanic variety of Aplecta nebulosa, Tr. — Mr. J. Collins, of Warrington, who 

 is an extremely intelligent and observant collector, has sent five specimens of Aplecta 

 nebulosa, which have been reared, with many of more ordinary character, by himself 

 and a friend from larvae collected at Delamere Forest, Cheshire. These specimens 

 are of a very beautiful melanic form, the fore-wings being entirely suffused with 

 shining smoky-black, except the orbicular and renal stigmata, and the shaded sub- 

 terminal line, which are of a silvery pale grey, and the cilia, which are white. The 

 finish, which is given by the white cilia to the glossy blackish wings, is something 

 exquisite. The hind-wings are somewhat darker than in ordinary specimens, but 

 not strikingly so, the dark colour, which forms a sort of ill-defined margin usually, 

 is in these spread over the hind-wings. The other specimens, reared at the same 

 time, are well marked, darker than the usual soutliern examples, but not sufPused, so 

 that the melanic form is not led up to by closely intermediate forms, and this being 

 the case, the varietal name " Roh.<!oni," which Mr. Collins has proposed for the 

 melanic variety, appears unobjectionable. — Id. 



Staiiropus fagi double-hrooded. — Stauropus fagi has been emerging here for the 

 second time this season. iVIr. J. Clarke, of this town, has had several emerge from 

 August pupa; one in an open box in his garden, and another in a sleeve before he 

 had removed it from the tree. On October 15th the same gentleman exhibited a 

 fresh unset specimen at a meeting of the Eeading Natural History Society. My 

 brother sleeved his larva3 on an apple tree ; they pupated in August, were then kept 

 in a shed in his garden, and on October 30th he found a female liad emerged. On 

 November 4th, a general holiday here, I got a whole day off in the woods. I was 

 asked to leave the first wood I entered as they were about to shoot it over that day. 

 I had no success in the second wood ; but in the afternoon, in a third and smaller 

 wood, I found a msXefagi on a tree, and just before dark I got another male on an 

 old stump of a tree which had been broken off. Both these moths were rather 

 battered, and had evidently been out some time. It appears, tlien, there is a partial 

 second appearance of /a^j, and October is the month to look for it. But what I 

 think is the strangest thing about this is, there are other entomologists here who 

 have pupie oi fagi (in one case a large number, 70 or 80), pupae which turned in 

 very early. The larvoe having been fed up indoors, none of these have emerged, 

 whilst those in the wilds, and those fed under more natural conditions, have some 

 of them been coming out. — W. Holland, 111, Southampton Street, Reading : 

 November 6th, 1891. 



P.S. — All the other collectors here are on the look out now, and Mr. Barnes, of 

 this town, found another male on the 6th. No female yet. — -W. H. : November 9th. 



Cha^ige of habit induced by local conditions. — The following remarks tend to 

 show how imprudent it is to judge of the habits of common insects from a purely 

 local standpoint. 



