CURRENT NOTES, 101 



Dr. Knaggs tells us that the corrosion which ruins many of our 

 entomological specimens, and which we have hitherto called " verdigris," 

 is in reality oleate of copper. 



An excellent article by Mr. Eustace R. Bankes, on " Lifa infitdbilella 

 and its nearest British allies," has been commenced in the current 

 No. of the EJLM. 



A very interesting paper on an " Aberration of Epinephelc lanlra,'" 

 with incidental notes on the variation of many other l)utterflies, a})pears 

 in the April number of Socieias Entomoloyica. 



A new book by Mr. J. W. Tutt, entitled Woodmle, Bar aside, 

 Hillside, and Marsh, is in the press. It will consist of a series of 

 illustrated literary sketches on somewhat similar lines to Random Recol- 

 lections of Woodland, Fen and Hill, the publication of which has 

 proved so successful. The new volume will be published at 2s. ()d., 

 and will be illustrated by many plates. It will api)eal alike to 

 entomologists, botanists, geologists and ornithologists. The essays are 

 written in popular and untechnical language, but yet from the stand- 

 point of the most recent scientific knowledge. 



At the South London Entomological Society's meeting on March 8th, 

 an amusing scene occurred which shows our scientific (?) studies m the 

 light in which they are understood by some people. A remarkable 

 arrangement, by means of which a dummy Red Admiral butterfly was 

 made to move its wings, and a comprehensive contrivance for capturing 

 butterflies by decoy, after the most approved method of the White- 

 chapel birdcatcher, were set up for exhibition. The unscientific nature 

 of the whole affair, and the obvious want of taste which led to its 

 exhibition at a so-called scientific meeting, impressed many of the 

 members, who sarcastically asked whether a patent had been taken out 

 for the apparatus. These remarks appear to have annoyed at least one 

 of the members present, who made quite a stirring speech to the effect 

 that this was not a subject for ridicule but a really scientific discovery, 

 which might be put to good use in the Tropics, although it might not 

 do for use in England. It strikes us that, whether in tlie Tropics or 

 in England, the business of jiggling one's leg up and down to move 

 the wings of a Vanessa atalanta, and the pulling of a string at some 

 thirty yards distance, is not a form of entomology that the intelligent 

 scientist or even collector wants to have anything to do with. It may 

 be an interesting discovery to aid in the extermination of rare insects, 

 and is of about as much interest to science as a thumbscrew. Men who 

 collect for information we understand ; men who collect for " sport " 

 as they call it, and because they must kill something, wo have re- 

 peatedly met ; but from the man who catches his bugs with an 

 intelligence (?) excelling that of the Whitechapel bird-catcher who 

 Avrings the necks of all his hen victims because they are not cocks, 

 may we be delivered. We suppose the reference to its use in the 

 Tropics when it would not do in England is on the lines that an 

 ignorant white man is able to do in front of intelligent ])lack men 

 wliat he dai"e not face l>efore the sensible farm laljourers of his own 

 nation. Floreat Entomologia a la Whitechapel. 



Lepidopterists are proceeding apace. Only last moutli we chron- 

 icled the hope of a well-known correspondent that he might be able, 

 with a friend of similar tastes, to do a little bug-catching after he had 

 shaken off this mortal coil, and now in the British Naturalist we have 



