NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 185 



lias also laid some ova ; this insect I had previously only taken at 

 Lyndhurst. I then netted a couple of Boarmia repandata var. con- 

 versaria, although in taking the first my net came to grief. After 

 picking a few unimportant things off the sugar, a small Geometer flew 

 up into a big sallow, and on turning the lantern upwards, I saw a 

 familiar object, in a fine pupa of Apainra iris. I spent an hour over 

 that and other sallows and got no more, but I am sure it should be 

 a good way to get them as the sallow leaf looks quite blue by lamp- 

 light and the pupa pale green, the light colour caught my eye directly. 

 On the way home I got two Geometra papilionaria, and have been for 

 it again, but only exploded the fallacy that G. tapilionaria does not 

 come out before 12 p.m., as it flies at dusk like other Geometers. I 

 have never seen A. iris in this wood, though I am often here, and I 

 have beaten tiie sallows at all times of the year. It shows how little 

 we know of the country round us. Thyatira batis and Gonophora 

 derasa have come to sugar this year here, and Rusina tencbrosa, Noctua 

 augiir, and Helioihis marginatus, all of which are new to the immediate 

 neighbourhood, where I sugar every year. — G. M. A, H ewett. Jtily 

 iTth, 1891. 



Swansea. — I have done very little collecting till recently, the only 

 things I have taken of note lately are one Plusia orichalcea, taken on 

 a flower in the sunshine, August 3rd, one Cosinia pyralina at light last 

 night, and one Geometra papilionaria on July 31st. I have also taken 

 a few Eupisteria heparata in very good condition, surely very late for 

 this insect. — R. B. Robertson. August, 1891. 



Agrotis ravida. — I took a single specimen of this insect at sugar 

 on the 15th inst. at Saltburn, Yorkshire. — T. Maddison, South Bailey, 

 Durham. Augi/st 19//?, 1891. 



BiSTON HiRTARiA. —From the notes which have appeared in the 

 Record recently, it would seem that this insect is rarely found on the 

 various species of poplar. I have several times taken the imago on 

 poplar trunks, but these have always been 5* 's. That the larvse will 

 feed freely on poplars I have satisfied myself this season, having found 

 them devouring the young shoots of two species of the genus Fopnlus ; 

 they also feed occasionally on lilac. Whatever the food, the larvae 

 always prefer the young shoots growing round the roots of the trees, 

 and they are seldom found feeding at a greater height than four feet 

 from the ground. As regards the distribution of the species, I can say 

 nothing, beyond that I have always had an idea that it flourished 

 nowhere so well as in the "parks" and "squares" of London — more 

 especially in the northern and north-western districts. Perhaps some 

 reader can tell us something of its habits and distribution on the Con 

 tinent ? — Jas. A. Simes, 4, Cricketfield Road, Lower Clapton. 



I took the first specimen of B. hirtaria on May nth on a lime 

 trunk, and going to the same place about 6.30 the next morning, I took 

 over a dozen. They were very abundant up to the 15th, after which 

 they fell off in numbers and quality, only a few worn females remaining 

 on the tree trunks. I took in all about forty specimens, seventy per cent, 

 of which were females, and much less variable in shade than the males. 

 I witnessed rather a curious instance of the "reasoning faculties" — if 

 such a term can be applied to insects — being overcome by the " heredi- 

 tary instinct," I had placed two fertile females in a piU-box, hoping to 



