CURRENT NOTES. IG 



woods all over a large portion of the country. It occurs also both 

 in Scotland and Ireland." V. rohoricoJeUn, " colour darker, bronz}', 

 blackish-brown, shot with purplish, not so smoothly glossy as in 

 F. intermedieUa. Found on lichens on oak, pine, and Inrch trunks, 

 sometimes on rocks." Heading, Leatherhead, Portland, Hasleinere, Can- 

 nock Chase, South of Ireland are recorded localities. F. betulina, " in 

 Avhich the fore-wings are larger than in the two preceding ; colour, 

 very dark glistening bronzy-brown, smooth and opa(pie ; has been taken 

 in Bisho})'s Wood, llampste.ad. Box Hill, Ejjping Forest, New Forest." 

 F. ndJicoleUa (salicicolella), " a curious little s})ecies, the fore-wings form- 

 ing a long slender oval, and being shining lu'ownish-black in colour ; only 

 one British specimen known, taken by Mr. E. G. Baldwin at Bishop's 

 Wood, Hampstead. F. tahulella, with " a thick ovate case, which stands 

 perpendicularly from the plane of its position." Mr. J. E. Fletcher, of 

 Worcester, is the only British entomologist who appears to get it, and 

 from a case obtained by him Mr. Stainton bred a moth which is in his 

 collection. We should like to know whether reprints of this paper are 

 obtainable. 



Messrs. Deyrolle of Paris, are attempting to solve the question of 

 " a perfect pin " for entomologists. Some years ago, Mr. Thurnall 

 suggested in our pages a nickel pin, and this is what the French firm 

 have produced. Their nickel pins ai'e " not of absolutely pure nickel, 

 but of an alloy, of which nickel is the principal component part." 



Vision op Insects. — Mr. A. Mallack (Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., Iv.) 

 concludes from various observations and calculations that " Insects 

 do not see well — at any rate, as regards their power of defining distant 

 objects, and their behaviour favours this view. They have, however, 

 an advantage over single-eyed animals in the fact that there is hardly 

 any practical limit to the nearness of the objects they can examine. 

 With a compound eye, the closer the animal the better the sight, for 

 the greater will be the number of lenses employed to j)roduce the im- 

 pression. In the single eye, on the other hand, the focal length of the 

 lens limits the distance at which a distinct view can be obtained. Of 

 the various forms of insects examined, the best eye would give a picture 

 about as good as if executed in rather coarse woodwork, and viewed at 

 a distance of a foot." 



ARIATION. 



Variety of Agrotis segetum. — I captured this year what I 

 presume to be a variety of A. segetnm, although the form is quite new 

 to me. It is of silvery light French-grey tone, and has, practically, no 

 markings on the fore-wings beyond a very slight trace of the 

 claviform. I took the specimen on the N.E. coast of Ireland. — Cecil 

 Thokniiill, The Lodge, Annagassan, Dunleer, Ireland. Nor 2nd 

 1894. 



DicRANUKA BIFIDA AB. Ai'KATA : New var. — Ou June 27th, 1894, 

 I bred a very remarkaljle aberration of D. bifida. It is a male in 

 which the ground colour is as white as in D. bicnspis ; the central band 

 is also broken as in the latter species, and, instead of being grey, is, as 

 well as the apical spot, of a bright golden yellow. I found the eggs, 

 from which this aberration was reared, on Fopulus nujer in the spring of 



