SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 299 



Practical HinU, iii., p. 104 (last line) Brachi/poiliion sii/lvaticiiiii might 

 be correct of larvae pupating in confinement, but, although it is 

 attributed to Zeller, I am not aware (speaking entirely from memory, 

 being separated from my library) that he found the larva in nature on 

 this grass, though he did so on ('alaiinvirnsitift epi<iejns, in Austria [surely 

 in Posen. — Ed.] . In confinement wild-caught British larvae of T. actaeon 

 have been found to thrive well upon Tritictim repoia (Buckler) and Bia- 

 rhifpoflium si/lvaticuii) (Mrs. E. S. Hutchinson). While referring to T. 

 actaeon, it may be as well to point out that the late Mr. C. G. Barrett 

 wrote of it, in his Ihi't. I^cpidnptcra, i., 289, " There is no record of its 

 occurrence east of Weymouth." This, however, is an error, and is all 

 the more unaccountable because the writer had just previously quoted 

 my published remarks about its occurrence in the Isle of Purbeek, and 

 on both sides of Lulworth, all of which localities lie to the " east " of 

 Weymouth ! Nor can " east " be a laps, cat., or a misprint, for 

 "west," for this butterfly has long been recorded as frequenting spots 

 further west than Weymouth. — Eustace R. Bankes, M.A., Corfe 

 Castle. September 2Qth, 1905. [The error is of course Buckler's, the 

 correction having been unfortunately at the time missed, although it 

 should have been remembered, but we suspect that, if we accredited 

 Zeller with the second supposed slip, Zeller did say so in some or other 

 of his writings to which we referred at the time. We were very 

 disgusted this year with our lack of botanical knowledge, for we wished 

 to determine the grass among which T. actaeon was flying abundantly 

 at Bourg 8t. Maurice, but were quite unable to distinguish it from 

 what we have always considered Brachypodium sylvaticuiii. It may 

 have been this of course, but it possibly was not, and we lost our 

 specimen thereof before reaching home. An entomologist has, un- 

 fortunately, much to get into a portmanteau, and there are only 

 24 hours in a day. Most of the continental authorities give 

 Brachjipiniinm ^ylvaticum as a foodplant for this species. — Ed.] 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



On the ASSEMBLiNfi OF NoTOLOPHus GONosTiciMA. — On Juue 29th and 

 July 1st this year I bred two females of Notolophus yonoxtiyiDa from 

 larvae beaten at Brentwood. The latter day being a Saturday, and 

 coming out sunny about noon after a rainy morning, I made all speed 

 to take these females down to their old home, in order to find them 

 mates. I arrived on the ground at about 2.30 and found the males 

 flying from that time till 5.20, although they got decidedly scarcer 

 after the first hour. The weather was tolerably warm, with a strongish 

 south wind. I must have seen nearly 50 males in all, and secured 

 just 24, mostly in fine condition. What iiaterested me most, though 

 it lost me so many specimens, was their cuinously specialised habit in 

 seeking the females. Of course, there is no doubt that they come up 

 by "following the scent," but when they got close this invarial)ly 

 failed them or was abandoned, and they substituted a systematic 

 search about the branches of the tree, prying in under the tufts of 

 leaves, and quite evidently knowing by instinct just where the female 

 cocoons ought to have been spun up. Very few came and settled on 

 ray assembling cage, which was hung from an outside twig in order 

 to give me a fair chance with the net, and a large number abandoned 



