NOTES ON ABRAX^\S GROSSULARIATA AND HOW TO REAR IT. !^2l 



published his collections at all because he had not the opportunity to 

 arrange them ideally. Let us be grateful to Mr. Tutt that he at least 

 has not sinned that barren sin. 



A subject-index would go far to put all this right. Mr. Tutt tells 

 us in his preface that if anyone will make such an index, he will print 

 it in the next volume. Cannot some keen young worker take him at 

 his word ? Meanwhile, the student of evolution must not be daunted 

 by the difficulty of putting his hand at once on the fact he is looking 

 for, and the physiological chiffonier, as Claude Bernard called himself, 

 may be assurad that if he will only rummage about a little, he will pick 

 up some rare treasures in Mr. Tutt's heap. 



To include everything that can by any possibility relate to, or 

 interest the student of the British fauna, is to err on the right side, 

 though the connection with that fauna be rather remote. Now and 

 again, however, we come on a few pages which are very doubtful in 

 point. Space being so valuable, we feel that, for instance, the details 

 regarding the structure and classification of the Attacides of the world 

 need not have found a place here, not that the facts are unimportant, 

 but no one is likely to look for them in a work on a fauna which con- 

 tains one solitary species of the group. 



The unprofessional reader wonders, too, who uses the solid pages of 

 locality-records in the case of species widely distributed. When these 

 records detail the varieties of the districts, their value is manifest, and 

 they will form a solid basis for the observation of future changes in 

 distribution. Did we not feel sure that, in this case, the author knows 

 the requirements of his public, we might be disposed to question 

 whether this was really the best use to which the labour and space 

 could have been put. 



None of these remarks, however, detract from the statement that 

 the new British Lepiilnptera is a fine scholarly piece of work, for 

 which not only the entomological specialist, but naturalists of all 

 orders will be thankful to Mr. Tutt for many a year. 



Notes on Abraxas grossulariata and how to rear it. 



By (Kkv.) G. H. RAYNOE, M.A. 



To most of us who have been collecting English Macro-Lepidoptera 

 for a considerable number of years in the same locality, a time arrives 

 when we feel we have so thoroughly worked the species frequenting 

 our neighbourhood, that the only way to sustain our flagging interest 

 is to take up some particular species and thoroughly investigate its 

 range of variation in the British Isles. In such a case the three 

 desiderata are that it should be common, variable, and easily reared 

 from the egg ; for, although the last item is not absolutely a sijie qua 

 non, yet it is highly desirable. In the early nineties of last century, I 

 was fortunate to breed (from wild Darenth Wood larva-) a very line 

 male aberration of Aivjerona i.ninariu, which I succeeded in pairing 

 with a female of the ab. sordiata. I was thus enabled to establish a 

 very fine race of this species and to enrich my cabinet with a long and 

 remarkai^le series of this magnificent insect. The riice died out in 

 1897, after an existence of five or six years. 



In 1893, when I was living at Pantou, in central Lincolnshire, I 

 determined to go in for Rpilnsoiiia lnbrici/ieda, and succeeded in finding 



