NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 135 



the last is rare. On fences, A. virgularia and E. pumilata are abun- 

 dant, and one specimen of A. trigeminata was taken on the 5th July 

 last year near High Beach, while on some of the walls on the outskirts 

 Bryophila perla is very plentiful. At sugar, one Dicycla 00 was captured 

 in July, i8gi. Of other species, Leucania impiira, Agrotis segetum, 

 Calymnia trapezi?ia, Apamea didyina and JV. triafigulum are very com- 

 mon. Gonophora derasa was abundant last year. A good many Axylia 

 putris were boxed in 1890, but none in 1891. Noctiia f estiva and 

 bmiinea, Calymnia diffi?ns, Apamea unanimis. Mania maura and 

 Dyschorista ypsilon are fairly frequent visitors, but the two last are more 

 plentiful in the Lea Valley. Caradritia blanda is rather rare ; some are 

 dark. Leucania pallens is abundant ; one var. rufescens was caught in 

 Monkswood in 1892. Two specimens of Mamestra sordida have been 

 taken — one each year. In July, 1890, one H. quercana was attracted 

 to the sugar, and in 1891 another specimen was beaten from an oak in 

 the Chingford section. Another visitor to sugar in 1890 was a fine 

 Cossus lig}iiperda. {To be continued.) 



Entomological Pins. — I quite agree with Mr. Harwood in what he 

 says regarding pins in the Record for April. The best pin still is the 

 old gilt or silvered one of Tayler & Co. These pins ar-e perfect in 

 temper ; but still they have two faults, their large heads, and liability 

 to verdigris. The last fault is the serious one. Kirby, Beard & Co.'s 

 pins have better shaped heads, bat are of worse metal and make ; but 

 even in these we discover the badly made ones before we have pinned 

 our insects, and reject them without any harm being done. All these 

 pins are coated by electricity, with the thinnest possible film of metal, 

 too thin to be of any use. Black pins are worse. These are un- 

 sightly from their colour ; they are too soft, nor have they served the 

 purpose they were puffed to serve, unless that purpose was to fill the 

 pin maker's pocket — they may have done this — but time shows that 

 they have not prevented verdigris. I have insects here, on black pins, 

 with as flourishing, branching, green trees of verdigris growing out of 

 their thoraces, as any of those Tortrices I was looking at the other 

 day in the South Kensington Museum. Whether on black or white 

 pins, I fear a collection of pinned Tortrices would be the same as 

 these if kept as long. Mr. Tutt's Pterophori prove nothing, unless 

 he shows how long his, and his correspondents' specimens have been 

 pinned; for black pins have not been in use many years, but there is 

 no knowing how long those insects on white pins have been pinned. 

 Mr. Tutt says, " There can be no doubt that a much inferior metal is 

 used in the manufacture of japanned pins, than in the ordinary ones." 

 But there is no need to assume as a certainty that all the makers 

 systematically use inferior metal for black pins, when there is a simple, 

 true explanation of the matter in the fact that heat is applied to the 

 pins for the japan to be put on and harden. This heating takes the 

 temper out of the pins, and the result is, they turn up at the points, or 

 double up suddenly, close up below the moth. Probably, as many 

 moths are ruined from this doubling up of the pin alone, as by the 

 verdigris in the old pin, and they are certainly destroyed much more 

 quickly, and still we have the verdigris left to finish off many more. I 

 have never used black pins because I foresaw that they would be 

 softened in the process of varnishing, and I communicated my ideas on 



