SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 97 



very small. These fed up well on nettle, and twenty duly pupated 

 between October 1st and 10th, eleven of them attaching themselves to 

 the roof of their cage, and the other nine to leaf-stalks of the nettle. 

 Emergence commenced on October 16th, and the last butterfly appeared 

 on October 26th. Of the two which emerged on October 16th, one 

 was var. liutchimuni, and this form continued to appear, as well as the 

 normal forms, with both the variegated and plain undersides. 

 Altogether I obtained nine var. In(tc/iins<ml from my twenty pupse. — 

 (Rev.) Alfred T. Stiff, Grantham, Victor Drive, Leigh-on-Sea. 



XyLINA ORNITOPUS, RoTT., VAR. LACTIPENNIS, NOV. SUBSP. While 



working through my collections I was surprised to find that the very 

 striking race of Xylina ornitapHs, which occurs in England, is still 

 unnamed. In his JJrit. Noctnac, vol. iii., p. 99, Mr. Tutt states : 

 "Continental specimens which I have seen of this species aopear 

 to be slightly greyer than our British specimens, which are of a 

 somewhat purer white ground colour." It is fairly evident from this 

 that Mr. Tutt had not a great deal of continental material before 

 him, otherwise he would hardly have passed over our British race 

 so lightly. Fortunately, I possess a fairly long series of this species 

 from the New Forest, and have taken it in large numbers in various 

 localities in Germany in such distant places as Luxemburg., Berlin, 

 Saxony, and Osterode Ost Preussen. The English series show up 

 very prominently on account of their conspicuous whiteness, and one 

 would have no difficulty in picking them out at a considerable 

 distance. As the whole of my English specimens are of this form, 

 and, speaking from memory, they do not differ from other English 

 specimens, it seems to me that this is a well pronounced local race, 

 and deserving of a special name, I therefore propose to christen it A'. 

 uniitoims var. laetipcnnia. All my continental specimens are remark- 

 ably uniform in colour, all on pale blueish grey with smoky brown 

 markings and black dashes and red-brown orbicular. The ground- 

 colour of var. lactipennis is much whiter, the smoky markings are 

 much less distinct, the black markings much reduced in size, and the 

 colour of the orbicular inclines more to yellow than red-brown, thus 

 the whole facies of the insect becomes much paler. — E. M. Dadd, 

 F.E.S., Annastrasse, 6, Zehlendorf, near Berlin. 



Habits of young larv^ of Mamestra BRASsiCiE. — In the summer 

 of 1908, I noticed that the flowers of several bushes of aconite in my 

 garden were being eaten, and I therefore searched, and soon found the 

 trespasser. It was a young Noctuid larva of a pale green colour, 

 lying curved along the mid-rib of the hood of the flower. The egg 

 had been laid on the blossom, and the young larva had evidently at 

 once eaten its way into the flower, a small hole being visible in each 

 case beside the remains of the Qgg. I found quite a number of very 

 small caterpillars, and so was able to verify my first observation. 

 Feeling uncertain as to what the Noctuid was, I reared a fair number, but 

 it was not until the last two instars that I surmised what they might 

 turn out to be. The young larvit continued to occupy and to eat the 

 flowers so long as they could get inside, and all this time they 

 remained green. When, however, they became too large, they would 

 lie along tbe mid-rib of a leaf on the underside, or sometimes along 

 the stem itself, but they then assumed their ordinary brown hue. 

 The darkening of the green colour soon became quite perceptible, 



