CtJRRENT NOTES. 73 



things, and Dr. Knaggs will hardly ridicule people nowadays into any 

 particular line of belief, as to whether energy is required more by male 

 or female products. Geddes and Thompson only quote Mrs. Treat's 

 experiments as un fait accompli, they can scarcely " endorse " them. We 

 have ourselves criticised some of these authors' conclusions in Secondary 

 Sexual Characters in Lepidoptera. But to return to facts. In one of 

 the Cartwright lectures for 18'J2, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, on '' Here- 

 dity and the Germ-cells," we find : — " The causes finally determining 

 sex may come surprisingly late in development, and, according to the 

 investigations of Diising, and the experiments of Yung and of Giron, 

 are directly related to nutrition. High feeding favours an increase of the 

 percentage of females, while conversely, low feeding increases the 

 males, in Yung's experiments with tadi^oles, the following results 

 were obtained : — 



Normal percentage ... 57 females ... 43 males 

 High nutrition 92 females ... 8 males." 



There are arguments on the original neutrality of ova and other 

 matters of general biological interest, and so far as they have a general 

 bearing, directly interesting to the entomological student, and these 

 arguments backed up by experiments, go far to prove that the ultimate 

 development of a male or female product, has more to do with nutri- 

 tion than the Doctor would appear to think. The following part of 

 Dr. Knaggs' paper appears to us as illogical as the fii'st part is 

 imscientific. 



An interesting paper on certain Micro-lepidoptera is published in the 

 current number of the E. M. M., by Lord Walsingham . Tinea nigripunctella, 

 taken by Mr. Atmore, at King's Lynn, found hitherto in Britain, only at 

 Bristol and Folkestone. Sericoris palustrana, which was originally de- 

 scribed by Zeller, and has long been recorded as occurring among pines in 

 Scotland and the North of England, was beaten from a fir-tree on the edge 

 of a marsh near King's Lynn. But much more important is the addition 

 of Argyresthria illuminatella, to the British list, from specimens taken at 

 Forres, by Salvage, among larch, and the capture of a series of very 

 similar specimens at King's Lynn, which Lord Walsingham thinks will 

 prove distinct from illuminatella, to which the Scotch specimens are 

 referred without hesitation. Two Gelechias " of a uniform purplish- 

 brown colour, with a few pale specklings around the apex and apical 

 margin, and a single obscure dark spot at the end of the cell, the 

 antennae with a series of three pale spots on the outer third, the outer 

 one of which is a little before the apex ; the cilia somewhat paler than 

 the wings, especially about the anal angle, and the hind wings shining 

 slaty-gTey, with pale cilia, tending to brownish-ochreous, the abdomen 

 inclining also to brownish-ochreous ; legs pale, apparently unspotted. 

 Exp. al. 14 m.m," are indistinguishable from Xystophora servella, Z., in 

 the Zeller collection. 



Dr. Chapman records the emergence of a Doritis apollina, at 2 a.m., 

 on Jan. lyth, in a warm room at 74°. It was then removed to a room 

 at 51°. Next morning, at 9 a.m., the wings were unexpanded, taken 

 back to warm room, and within five minutes, the wings were well on 

 the way to development. 



Mr. Beaumont {E. M. M.), adds Diastata fnmipennis (beaten from 



