NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 261 



they would not touch it, they seemed to have quite made up their 

 minds to die, the rest fed up on poplar, and the first turned in on 

 June i6th, and emerged July 26th; the last turned in July 5th, and 

 emerged August 13th. Altogether, I reared nine very fine specimens. — 

 W. E. Butler, Hayling House, Oxford Road, Reading. November ist, 

 1890. 



Time of appearance of Plusia festuce. — During the last two or 

 three years, my experience of F. festucce has been similar to that of 

 Mr. Johnson {vide Record for October, p. 184). Toward the end ot 

 June, P. festucce and P. pidchrina appear flying at dusk over a bed of 

 "Lobel's catchfly" — sown for the purpose — and are taken in fine 

 condition. About the beginning of July, these get scarcer : P. iota, 

 and ^amma, with an occasional bractea take their place. And, after 

 every spell of good weather, iota may be had newly emerged and in 

 fine condition till late in August, when it gets scarcer, and gamma is at 

 its best. A little later festucce. may be still found in fine condition 

 and seemingly newly emerged. 



This year jFestiiciz was specially abundant but there was a decided 

 falling off in the numbers o( gamma. In 1889, when you walked along 

 any railway embankment, about the end of June, gamma rose in dozens, 

 but this year I am sure I did not see a dozen specimens altogether. — 

 Hugh S. Dunn, Jun., Caprington, Kilmarnock, N.B. 



Moths at Flowers of Tritoma uvaria. — Having last year noticed 

 that many moths were attracted to the flowers of the Red Hot Foker 

 ^Tritoma uvaria)^ I naturally expected a rich harvest of insects from 

 the same source this autumn, when, on three plants. I counted altogether 

 a hundred splendid blossoms. In this I was disappointed ; for, though 

 the flowers were carefully examined every night, not a moth put in an 

 appearance till the second week in September. Then I only took two 

 specimens of Hydracia inicacea, several Hadetm protea, 2 Xanthia 

 fulvago {cerago), and a few X.flavago {silago), Anchocelis litura, Phlogo- 

 phora metiadosa and Triphcena promiba. Last year, in addition to 

 these, I took Agrotis siiffusa and several others. — J. H. D. Beales, 

 West Woodhay Rectory, Newbury. 



CELiENA haworthii. — During x\ugust, I found several C. haworthii 

 sitting on the flowers of the ragwort in the daytime, which I have 

 never noticed before. — Geo. A. Booth, Grange-over-Sands. 



C. haworthii are to be taken off the bloom of Ej-ica in the daytime ; 

 they have a habit of dropping off" the flowers at the approach of the 

 collector, long before he is sufficiently near to box. —J. H. Stott, 

 Lostock, Bolton. 



Rearing Hadena genist/e. — It may interest some of your readers 

 to hear, that my experience of rearing Hadena ge7iisice has been, up to 

 the present, just the opposite to that of Messrs. Goldthwaite and Hewett, 

 and Mi?s Kimber. My friend, Dr. Crallan, last July sent me 50 larvae 

 just hatched, from which I have about 40 healthy pupa2. The larvae I 

 lost, died when quite small. I fed them on knot grass, giving them 

 fresh food every day, and kept them, as I do all my larvae, in a large 

 flower pot, with muslin tied over the top. — VVm. Farren, Fern House, 

 Union Road, Cambridge. November, 1890. 



