NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 159 



are the first specimens of fuliginosa noted for this district. On June 

 1 2 th I took at Penarth Macroglossa bombyliforinis as the insect was 

 settled on the grass. Several specimens are believed to have been seen 

 on the wing. Vanessa cardui has turned up very suddenly this spring 

 in extraordinary numbers, none having been seen last season about 

 here. This seems to show that the present visitors are immigrants. I 

 have lately come across some of the larvae. Zygana filipendidce has 

 also been literally swarming this season. Several Ardia villica have 

 been taken on Barry Island. During the last week or two a fairly good 

 number of Macroglossa stellatanim have been seen, several being 

 captured. Is not this date also rather early for stellatanim ? This is 

 certainly thus far the best season we have had for several years. May 

 one of the reasons be found in the severity of the last two winters, 

 killing many enemies of the insects, and thus preserving the larvae and 

 pupee from destruction. — G. A. Birkenhead, Downs View, Penarth, 

 near Cardiff. J^uly 6/h, 1892. \_M. stellatarum has been recorded for 

 every month in the year, I believe. June and July are its chief months 

 in Kent. — Ed.] 



Folkestone. — I took Deiopeia pulchella here on May 29th, and saw 

 another whilst fishing at Smeeth (about nine miles from here, on the 

 South Eastern Railway) on the 4th of June. I had no net with me, 

 but tried to box the insect several times, when a gust of wind blew it 

 into some willows across the stream. During the five years I have resided 

 here, I have never seen Colias edusa in the spring till this year, when I 

 have seen quite close I should think at least half a dozen (male and 

 female) all much 7vorn. — F. Le Grice, 4, Shorncliffe Road, Folke- 

 stone, y^une 30///, 1892. 



Swansea. — I took a splendid Dielephila livornica flying over 

 rhododendrons, a few days since. — R. B. Robertson, Fort Hubber- 

 stone, Milford Haven. June 24//;, 1892. 



Folkestone. — I have the pleasure of adding Cloantha polyodon 

 [perspicillaris) to the record of rare insects captured this year. I took 

 a specimen at sugar on the 4th of this month, near Folkestone. It 

 is a male, and in good condition, except that the fringes are worn, 

 showing that it must have been on the wing for some days. It is too 

 striking a moth to make any mistake about, but to make assurance 

 doubly sure, I took it up to South Kensington Museum, and compared 

 it with the solitary specimen which I was shown there. — E. ^V. 

 Brown, Shorncliffe. June 2()t/i, 1892. [It is a pleasure to record the 

 capture of such a rarity as C. perspicillaris. " This species is hardly 

 known as British. There are two records only, given in Newman's 

 British Moths, p. 425. Of Clerck's figure I made the following de- 

 scription : — ' Anterior wings brownish-fuscous with the basal area white, 

 a broad, white, longitudinal patch running out of the basal area, along 

 the central nervure as far as the whitish-ochreous reniform with which 

 the patch is joined by three fine white lines. The space between the 

 elbowed and subterminal lines white, especially in the upper parts ; the 

 subterminal W-shaped and white ; the costal area dark brownish-fus- 

 cous ; a fine white edge to inner margin ; area under white patch in 

 stigmatal area ochreous-yellow. Hind wings grey ; paler base.' {[cones, 

 PI. II., fig. 2). Of the early occurrence of this species in Britain, Mr. 

 Stainton writes : — ' A single specimen of Cloantha perspicillaris was 



