SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 35 



is conspicuous on them ; but the little trees are nigged and covered 

 with knobs, large in proportion to the size of the tree, where branches 

 have been taken off to make the tree grow shapel3^ Fagi, as it sits 

 closely pressed to the tree, carefully balanced to the perpendicular, 

 with its wings folded in a triangular shape, the hind wings projecting 

 licyond the fore wings, after the fashion of Gastropacha quercifolia, 

 looks wonderfully like one of these knobs. The blackish variety in par- 

 ticular is so like a knob on the tree, that a close examination is needed 

 to detect it." This question of protection again assumes, I think, rather 

 a different aspect in our Forest of Epping. On some of our large grey 

 trunks, the ordinary form of fag! is admirably concealed, better indeed 

 than the blackish form. On many of the smaller trees, however, the 

 dark var. is certainly the better protected. Five of six specimens of 

 the black var. which we have taken (three ^ s, two 5 s), have been 

 on the smaller trunks, leaving only a single specimen ( ^ ) from the 

 larger and gxeyer trunks. Not a moth was taken from a well-gi'own 

 unpolled tree, which have as a rule, very smooth bark, and offer fewer 

 opportunities of concealment than either the small ones, or the old 

 rough-barked jDolled ones. The " spear " trees corresjiond I should 

 think, with the larger ones of which Mr. Holland speaks. This habit 

 of sitting on the smaller trunks, sticks, etc., on which the darker forms 

 are the better protected, may, perhaps, I think, be suggested as one of the 

 causes (advantages ? Ed.) of melanism in this species. Any darkening 

 of the trunks, etc., by moisture, or in Epping Forest by the smoke from 

 London, would also, I suj^pose, tend to produce the same effect. Mr. 

 Battley (as is known to the Members of this Society) exhibited some 

 few meetings ago, one or two specimens from the New Forest, which were 

 considerably paler than our usual Epping Forest form. Perhaps the 

 pale lichen-covered trunks of the New Forest, may have something to 

 do "with this. I have seen no records of the blackish var. from the 

 last-named locality, but Mr. Holland thinks that probably dark ones 

 will be found there, when larger bags of the species are made. At 

 present, I believe, the only localities from which this form is recorded, 

 are MarloAv and Beading — practically in the same belt of country — and 

 Ejiping Forest. Perhaps, some gentleman present, can tell us of the 

 occurrence of the variety elsewhere. In Epping Forest, we get a larger 

 proportion of dark vars. than are taken at Reading. The other point 

 which Mr. Holland raises in the above paragrajDh, viz. — the position 

 in which it sits, is also interesting ; they sit j)erfectly upright, the 

 under wings projecting beyond the upper ones ; the pattern of the fore 

 wings being indeed continued on the front margin of the inferior wing. 

 They also stretch out the front pair of legs beyond the head, which is 

 deeply buried between them. Flight : — Now as to flight, Mr. Holland 

 says (Ent. Mo. Mag.) that fagi is a " strong flier," but not much of a 

 wanderer, and considers that the " lethargic female keeps the males 

 near home " from its habit of "assembling," and remarks that " where one 

 moth is found, others are generally near the spot." He records having 

 taken four or five from one small tree, and eight or ten from a clump 

 of young trees. We have not had the good luck to find more than one 

 on a tree, but once found three within a few trees of one another. I 

 heard, however, of one gentleman who found four one day last year, 

 in the Forest, and of these, three sat on a single trunk. We have never 

 seen fagi on the wing, naturally. One, however, that was at rest, was 



