24 THE fa'tojiologtst's record. 



bottom "fanning" itself with its hind-legs, much as fish do with their 

 pectoral fins, as soon as the sun is obscured by a cloud the movement 

 ceases, but is recommenced as soon as the sun reappears ; C. Idero- 

 (jlyplnca, only three specimens, all from one pond, one a very pale 

 individual with no markings whatever on' the claws, and only one or 

 two black lines on the corium near the apex ; C. lugiibris, C. fahricii, 

 C. faUenii, all very common ; C. linnaei, not common ; C. saldheriji, 

 fairly common ; C. striata, not cominon ; C. moesta, very common, 

 but restricted to one pond ; C. distincta, not common ; C. limit ata, 

 rare, two or three specimens ; C. aemi striata, rare ; C. praeuMa, fairly 

 common, restricted to one pond. — Oscar Whittaker, Morelands, 

 Heaton, liolton. December 21tfi, 1902. 



URRENT NOTES. 



In the yerliandlaniicn der k. k. zool.-bot. Gesells. in Wien, iii., 

 pp. 572 et .s<'(/.. Dr. Ruggero Cobelli gives a paper on " he stridulazioni 

 delVAcJu'rontia atropua,'" in which he details two experiments, both of 

 which show that ablation of the trunk made the animal permanently 

 dumb, and he concludes that the sound is made by the two halves of 

 the proboscis being rubbed against each other. This result does not 

 agree with those of Moseley, Poulton and others, who find the source 

 of the voice in an air-chamber at the base of the proboscis, with vocal 

 cords, itc. The animal can vocalise when the proboscis is extended, 

 and when the two sides are separated. It is also the case that the two 

 sides of the proboscis are very closely interlocked by thin marginal 

 structures, which would, by Cobelli's conclusion, be the cause of 

 the sound. The amputation of the proboscis is a severe operation, and 

 Cobelli may even have removed it so radically as to have interfered 

 with the vocal opening, which may also have been occluded by the 

 bleeding so close to it. No one, certaiuly, has yet succeeded in seeing 

 the vibrating opening during vocalisation, but the complete 

 removal of the proboscis, with continuing vocal powers, is definitely 

 described by both Passerini and Ghiliani, so that it is impossible to 

 accept Cobelli's conclusions, without much further evidence in their 

 favour is produced. 



At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, held on 

 December 3rd, 1902, Mr. H. W. Andrews exhibited a male specimen 

 of Therinph'ctcx Itiridits, from Chattenden, July 1902. Females of this 

 species were taken by Colonel Yerbury at Nethy Bridge, N.B., in 1900, 

 but there appears to be no record of the capture of the male. He also 

 exhibited a male Plati/chiriis sticticus, and a female ^liemdon derins, 

 from Eltham and Shoreham (Kent) respectively, and three small dark 

 examples of Si/rji/uis balteatiix, taken near Brockenhurst, where the 

 form was not uncommon, in October 1902. 



At the same meeting Islr. A. J. Chitty exhibited a box of insects, 

 taken between September 22nd and October 7th last, from a decayed 

 fence or hedge made of diffei'ent kinds of wood with the bark 

 left on. The uprights of the hedge were chiefly of birch. The 

 exhibit comprised about a hundred species, of which seventy-nine or 

 eighty were coleoptera. Four species of beetles, ri~., two species of 

 PoiionoclwrHs, the scarce Marroicplialits albiiuis, L., and the extremely rare 

 Tropideres nixeirostris, F., mimicked the surroundings of lichen-covered 



