272 THE entomologist's record. 



only a single Acidalia ontata and a few /'. bdlari/iis on the face of the 

 cliffs. S('pte)iibi'r Qt/i. — Very dull ; obtained a few I'. bcUarfjus before 

 11 p.m., when it began to rain, and continued raining hard all day. 

 We left Folkestone on the evening of September 6th, when it was 

 still raining, and there is no doubt that this was the most prominent 

 feature of my summer holidays of 1903. — C. P. Pickett, F.E.S.. 

 Dawlish Road, Leyton. Sejitnnber 20t/i, 1908. 



drURRE NT NOTES. 



Our readers will learn with regret of the death of our valued 

 correspondent. Professor Augustus Radclift'e Grote, M.A., which 

 took place on September 12th. He was an Englishman, born 

 near Liverpool, but was taken by his parents to America, where the 

 greater part of his early and middle life was spent, and where the 

 greater part of his entomological work was done. At a time when 

 all was chaos in American entomology, he and one or two other 

 pioneers raised the study of lepidoptera to a good level, and, by the 

 publication of his check lists, made possible a great deal of the rapid 

 advance that has taken place in American lepidopterology during the 

 last two decades. He hated superficial work, and his temperament 

 led him to expose it, whenever he believed he had found it, in no 

 measured terms ; and, like all people who take strong sides, 

 he made many friends and enemies, and was possibly at one time the 

 best loved and best hated lepidopterist in America. He was a true 

 lover of nature, as his notes, published in the h')ifo)ii(ih>iiisfs Rccunly 

 vol. vi, etc., and elsewhere, show, and he attempted, not without success, 

 to grapple with the philosophical questions that have since been 

 discussed by others with better opportunities in the way of material 

 .and leisure. His one complaint was that luck was against him,. 

 and his wish to be attached to the staft" of the British Museum 

 when he returned to Europe in 1881, and where he might 

 have done excellent work, was frequently in his mind when 

 writing to his friends. His collection is in the Natural History 

 Museum, the specimens incorporated with those of so many other 

 excellent naturalists unknown to the younger generation of today, 

 who have had things made easy for them by the work of such men 

 as he whose loss we mourn. His reawakening of the sleepy museum 

 at Hildesheim, to which he attached himself as an honorary helpei- 

 some few years ago, is fresh in the memory of all of us, and there 

 must be few British lepidopterists worthy of the name who are not 

 familiar with the quarto brochures that have issued thence of late years. 

 The greater part of his work, however, has even recently been published 

 in the American journals and transactions of various societies, and it 

 is, if of unequal value, mostly of high scientific importance. He 

 leaves a widow and family to mourn his loss, and to them our 

 sympathies are extended on the loss of one who, from continuous 

 correspondence during the last twelve years, we have learned to look 

 upon as a respected and honoured friend. 



Mr. G. M. Russell {Knto)ii., p. 227) remarks the well-known 

 seasonal change in the colour of the larva of (je<iiiietra vernaria, and 

 adds, " I do not remember seeing any previous record of the seasonal 

 change of colour of the larva." One suspects Mr. Russell's acquaint- 



