HETHOSPECT OF A LEI'lDOPTERlST. 9 



of pear-tree .snow loomed eerie-like in the approiicliing darkness or, to 

 to be more exact, the lengthening twilight. Yes, tliose early days were 

 delicious. But those early hopes of a successful entomological future 

 were doomed, alas, in most cases to disappointment during the coming 

 summer. No thought of failure, however, suggested itself then. What 

 harvests were made at the sallows by those who worked them I What 

 lovely Brephos notha gladdened the eyes of those who found its liaunts 

 in nooks where the aspens stood with their dark leafless trunks and 

 waving boughs, black against the clear blue of those excpiisitely 

 delicious, early spring-summer days ! But the warm south winds gave 

 way to keen and biting blasts, and the hot spring sun was shaded behind 

 never-ending banks of black, black clouds ; the fruit-trees were soon 

 denuded of their blossom ; the early leaves were nipped and withered 

 ere their beauty had begun. When, in June, the entomologist peeped 

 into the woods, the vegetation appeared to be just as he had left it six 

 weeks before ; moths refused to emerge, and when, at last, a few warm 

 days did come, the treacle-pot was found to be useless, for moths would 

 not be attracted by tliose delicious feasts, seasoned with the most power- 

 fully seductive aromas that human mind had yet devised to lead them 

 to their doom. Not yet though had the consummate degradation of 

 moth palate been achieved, that was so soon to be effectually brought 

 about by the substitution of metliylated spirit for the powerful rum whicli 

 had hitherto been their most insidious moral foe. During all these dark 

 days nothing occurred of importance, excejit the cajiture of a few 

 Pachetra leueophaea on the North Downs, and Hydrilla palastris in 

 Wicken Fen. The number caught shows that this latter insect cannot 

 be so rare as is generally supposed, and if one dare to prophesy, one would 

 suppose that in its chosen haunts it will be found to be moderately 

 common when its habits are known. Much turns on this ; there are 

 btit few insects that are really rare when once their habits are known. 

 Then came the rain, and the good old British climate of which so much 

 has been said and sung, was almost at its woi'st from an entomological 

 ])oiut of view. Not (]uite at its worst, though, for sixddenly, here and 

 there, in far-distant places all over the country, the moths ap^ieared to 

 have a^vakened to the love of rum and jargonel, nay even to that of methy- 

 lated spirit, mixed with their treacle. The eastern coast of Scotland was 

 the first to feel the " sugar " wave, and thence it travelled south and west, 

 and a few entomologists were happy again. Essex was revelling in 

 Agrotis obscura, Portland in A. pyroph'da, and .still the Scotch coasts pro- 

 duced their thousands and tens of thousands of moths, and Crijmodes exulis 

 fell to the Shetland workers, whilst the yellow male of Heptalm huimli was 

 taken as far south as Lanarkshire. Single specimens of Pien's daph'dice 

 were recorded from Margate and Addington, and a couple of Sphinx 

 pliuixtri as Ijeing bred from larvai found in Suffolk. Unfortunately the 

 ca]»ture of odd specimens of our rare butterflies does not help science 

 much, excejit as a reminder that a species occasionally attempts to spread 

 and to carry on a precarious existence on the l)orderland of its geo- 

 graphical range. Then the rain came again, and field entomology in 

 England was almost impossible, tliough the Scotch hills around Braemar 

 resounded to exultant shouts, announcing the capture of some 

 liundreds of that much-coveted Burnet moth, Zyijaena e^vidaiis. We do 

 want Zi/(f<tena cxidans in our cabinets, l)ut when a valued correspondent 

 writes that he is "afraid the insect has been badly shaken this year," 



