278 [December, 



Abundance of Peronea variegana, Schiff. — Has an excessive abundance of 

 the common Peronea variegana been generally noticed in the country during the 

 past season ? Here I never remember to have seen it in anything approacliing 

 the numbers of this year. Beginning to emerge in August, it continued right 

 through September and into October; and in suitable weatlier it could almost 

 always be seen ilying leisurely about even in the daytime in my garden, whilst the 

 hawthorn hedges adjoining must have harboured thousands of the moth. At first 

 the almost unicolorous bluish-black form was most noticed, but when the species 

 got thoroughly well out, the more ordinary form with the basal half white, and the 

 outer half brown or bluish-black, seemed largely to predominate, the walls and 

 palings indeed often looked as if white paint spots had been splashed on them, 

 the dark parts of the moth not being visible, to me at any rate, even at a very short 

 distance, though possibly younger eyes would have seen them well enough. Other 

 varieties occurred, and anyone specially interested in Tortrices could no doubt have 

 secured a wonderfully varied series. — Geo. T. Porritt, Elm Lea, Dalton, Hudders- 

 field : November 9th, 1909. 



A large colony of Formicoxenus nitidulus, Nyl., and mierogynes of Formica 

 fiixca in the New Forest. — On an afternoon last July, while collecting along the 

 New Park fence, facing Butt's Lawn, my attention was attracted to a small winged 

 insect crawling over the surface of a large nest of Formica rufa. This proved to 

 be a $ of Formicoxenus nitidulus. 



Although I scratched a few inches of the surface of the nest, I saw no other 

 examples. Realising the difBculty of distinguishing such a small insect amongst 

 the thousands of rufa workers, which were running all over the )iest, for it was a 

 Tcry hot day, I decided to go again the tiext day to the spot with a sieve. 



Armed with this instrument and a piece of white cloth I was astonishingly 

 successful. Within the space of an hour and a half I had got over six dozen 

 examples, including six apterous queens, and three males. The nest was a very 

 large one, the portion composed of bents, above the sandy surface of the bank, 

 being about 3 ft. x 2 x 1. However, this large number was taken in about a cubic 

 foot of siftings, the portion in which they were most numerous being the deep 

 part where the galleries commenced in the sand. 



It was while I was sifting this nest that the example of Myrmecoris gracilis 

 was obtained, which is now in Mr. Saunders' possession. 



On August 12th, in company with Mr. Hamm, I again sifted a portion of this 

 nest, and also of two or three others only a few yards away, and we succeeded in 

 obtaining about four dozen examples, and of these over a dozen were obtained from 

 the original nest. Altogether then, this one nest alone furnished more than seven 

 dozen examples, and probably, had we sifted it completely from end to end, that 

 number would have been doubled, showing that this was an exceptionally large 

 colony. 



Another interesting record for this year is the capture of several microgyne 

 queens in nests of Formica fusca. These were obtained in three distinct nests, all 

 in different localities. I am not aware of this form having been taken before in 



