184 THE Entomologist's record. 



12 a.m., after which they are more difficult to find, crawling further down 

 the heather stalks until 4 p.m., when they have gone down for the night. 

 Taken home and transferred to whitethorn, which they eat readily, they 

 will feed up on the new food, spinning in the latter part of May or in 

 early June, the imagines appearing in J uly. Therefore, according to the 

 rule that states that var. callmiae goes over winter in the pupal stage, 

 these must be L. querciis. Yet all my correspondents immediately refer 

 them, on the imaginal facies, to var. callwnae. It is also asserted that 

 the $ L. qitcrcHs is pale yellow, var. caUntiac of a darker coloration, more 

 nearly approaching the J , but I have a ? bred from a larva taken at 

 Sutton in May, very nearly as dark as the <? , yet this imago was the 

 very first to emerge in the year in which I obtained the larvjB. To which 

 form is this to be referred? Again, from a larva taken at the 

 same time and place I bred a yellow ? admittedly of the tint of 

 typical L. qitercm. Larvfe from Cannock Chase produced pupse that 

 went over the winter in the pupal stage and produced very dark examples, 

 which satisfy the usual conditions laid down for var. calliinae in 

 these respects, yet they altogether fail in the band, the yellow band 

 of the hinilwings not turning down, indeed, the bands are hardly 

 visible. Again, I have taken larvte on sallow between Dawlish and 

 Starcross close to the sea, and the imagines therefrom appeared the 

 same July, as they do here ; the females, however, are more darkly 

 banded than the admittedly typical L. qnercih, though not much, yet 

 here again, by the direction of the hindwing bands, the imagines 

 should be var. callunae, for these turn more distinctly than any other 

 imagines in my series. Having, therefore, reared larvae taken on 

 sallow, hawthorn, heather and bramble, and being unable to define 

 the differences between the imagines except in the depth of the 

 coloration, I am at a loss as to what really constitutes the vital 

 differences between L. qiiercuH and var. callunae. I may add that I 

 have a dark ? bred from a larva found on a young ash some years 

 since. It came out after a pupal period agreeing with that of L. 

 qnercih, in spite of its vallHiiaf'-like coloration. I have taken larvae on 

 bramble as early as February and as late as September on heather, 

 the latter fullfed, and these produced imagines in the next season. I have 

 come to the conclusion that there is no real difference in the imagines of 

 L. querciis and var. callunae, and am led to believe that such racial 

 differences as there are, are due to habitat ; at any rate, the breeding 

 of both forms from our midland larvte suggests that there is no real 

 distinction between the forms. — J. T. Fountain, Birmingham. May 

 14.th, 1902. [In British Lepidoptera, vol. iii., shortly to be issued, will 

 be found an exhaustive summary of all the published facts to hand relat- 

 ing to L. querciis and its local races. The study of the racial peculiarities 

 of this species offers possibly one of the very best lessons in the 

 development of species that is to be found in our lepidopterous fauna, 

 and there is no doubt that, when the various opposed facts are brought 

 into comparison, our lepidopterists will get a step forward in under- 

 standing the phenomena presented by the variation of this interestmg 

 species. — Ed.] 



(^OLEOPTERA. 



The Coleoptera of the Victorian History or Cumberland. — 

 Mr. F. H. Day is responsible for the list of coleoptera of this county 



