36 THE entomologist's record. 



startled by being touclied on the head, and showed that they can fly ; 

 it flew very swiftly, almost in a straight line from the place on the 

 trunk where it sat, to a point 30 or 40 yards off on the ground, and 

 was found only by the sound of its falling amongst the dry leaves. 

 The Eev. Bernard Smith considers wet seasons are favourable to the 

 moth ; in 1860 and 1862, he took more larva? of this species than ever 

 before or since. Assembling : — With regard to the habit of assembling, 

 Mr. Bernard Smith (" Notes on the Xotos.") sa^'^s that a J " taken into a 

 wood, and hung up in a cage of muslin, will attract many males be- 

 tAveen 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., on a warm night." He states, however, 

 that " the insect is difficult to pair," and that " the second night after 

 the ? has emerged, seems the only favourable one." The same 

 gentleman, in the Ent. Record, i., 67, gives a short account of an 

 " assembling " expedition many years ago, when a ? was taken to an 

 elevated spot on the ridge of a hill, and was hung in a muslin cage on 

 the branch of an oak about four feet from the gTound, The niglit of the 

 expedition was " warm and still," and at " about 11 o'clock, a J came 

 flying past the cage, rapidl}', and after three or four turns, allowed 

 himself to be netted." About half-a-dozen were taken of some two 

 dozen seen. Mr. Bernard Smith goes on to say " One was admitted 

 into the cage, but strange to say, immediately became quiet, for this 

 insect is very difficult to pair in confinement." Mr. Holland's ex- 

 j^eriences, however, do not bear out all these conclusions. His 

 impresssion is, that possibly, Mr. Bernard Smith's strain is weak, 

 from in-and-in breeding, and may not perhaps be depended on to act 

 naturally. He Avrites, " I have always found them pair on the 

 first night, and have had them sometimes emerge in the evening and 

 copulate before they were quite dry, like Liparis dispar." I have touched 

 on " oviposition," Avhen dealing Avith the ova. Mr. Holland tells me 

 that Avhenever he wanted eggs " he placed a J in a good-sized card- 

 board box, where, as soon as it grcAv dark, she began to fly about and 

 deposit eggs here and there about the box." " In no case," he continues, 

 *' were all the eggs laid in one night — several nights were needed to 

 complete the business." Of three $ from which we got ova, one laid 

 only eight and then died ; another laid some twenty ; and the remain- 

 ing one 70 or so ; but these two occupied several nights in ovipositing. 

 The $ which laid the 70 did not commence laying until three days 

 after capture, and was, when found, in very poor condition. Light : — 

 I am indebted to Dr. Buckell for the following records of the occurrence 

 of S. fagi at " light." I suppose the reason why we get so few records 

 of captures at this attraction, is that the usual haunts of the species are 

 far from the glare of towns. In Entoinologist, 1880 (p. 282), Mr. Pirn 

 records the capture of a specimen on a gas-lamp at Duhvich, on 

 June 21st, 1880. In the Zoologist for 1843, Mr. J. W. Douglas records 

 a specimen on a gas-lamp at Clapham Common, on May 7th, and 

 Mr. Edward Doubleday records one on May 10th, at Mr. Low's Kursery, 

 Upper Clajiton, but suggests that it was probably brought in the pupal 

 state in some moss from Hertford. In the Ent. Mo. Mag., 1886, 

 Mr. J. Hellins (either Exeter or Plymouth) took, on June 28th, a 

 wasted ^T sitting, in the middle of one of the lower panes of a dining- 

 room window, at 9 a.m. A lamp had been burning in the room till 

 midnight the jDrevious night. And lastly, in the Entomologist, 1892, 

 Mr. Christy notes the capture of a specimen in a moth-trap at Emsworth. 



