158 THE entomologist's reoorp. 



of larvfe inaclvevtentlj' disturbed in the breeding pots. Possibly this 

 plan has already been adoj^ted by some but, as it is new to me, it may 

 also be new to others. — D. Edgell, 5, Albert Koad, Bognor. Felt. 17///, 

 1895. 



On breeding Chariclea umbra. — I have on several occasions taken 

 by the roadside, in the course of a few hours, from eighty to three 

 hundred larv;x3 of this species, off rest-harrow. Of eighty that I Ijrought 

 home one day, only forty were to be counted on the following day, and 

 I found that 1 could not supply them with full rations of their favourite 

 food — the young seeds of rest-harrow. Solitary confinement of the 

 few survivors with foliage, blossom and seeds of rest-harrow, was 

 successful. On another occasion I brought home about three hundred 

 from Tuddenham, and supplied them with scarlet-runner beans in the 

 green pods, which I suspended amongst rest-harrow from tlie tops of 

 the jars, 'i'he larvae fully appreciated the beans as well as the pods, 

 and I was able to rear six to eight or more in each jar, without any 

 instance of cannibalism, except in one or two jars that were too 

 crowded. The moths emerged well the following season, and I do not 

 remember a single cripple. Green pods of peas were also eaten, but 

 scarlet-runners were iireferred. — F, Norgate, Bury St. Edmunds. 

 Feb. 1895. 



OTES ON COLLECTING, Etc. 



Str.\nge beuavioiir of a larva of Dicranura vinula. — I had a 

 number of larvai of this species in an ordinary breeding-cage. One of 

 them, when almost full-fed, descended to the bottom of the cage, and 

 began to walk slowly round and round in a small circle. This it con- 

 tinued to do for three weeks, and during the whole of that time 1 never 

 observed it to cease from its restless crawl, nor to deviate from the 

 small circle that it had selected. It refused to touch any food, although 

 I continually placed fresh leaves in its path. Beyond the darkening 

 in colour that habitually jjrecedes pujiation, it suffered no external 

 change. At the end of the three weeks it again crawled on to its food, 

 fed for a day or so and then spun up — the perfect insect emerging in 

 due course. Is this long period of restless movement without food an 

 unprecedented occurrence? — A. R. Haywakd, Wellington College, 

 Wokingham. Feb. IGth, 1895. 



A HUNT FOR Phorodesma smaragdaria. — I have just read Mr. Auld's 

 article under the above heading in the E.M.M. for March, and am 

 simply amazed to think that, in these matter of fact times, a veritalde 

 Rip van Winkle should arise in our midst to tell us, as something new, 

 this old story which we all knew so well. Do we live in such very 

 fast times that the discovery of this particular larva about eight years 

 ago, when its whole history was made known, has already become 

 ancient history and the true facts lost in the dim though not distant 

 past ? How else can we explain the fact that we are treated to this 

 mythical and not very elevating anecdote of the " beetle-catcher and 

 his friend," which has been entirely evolved from the imagination of 

 the narrator. The memoiy of my late friend Mr. Macliin alone induces 

 me to notice Mr. Auld's absurd statement, and to inform him that the 

 correct account of the matter is to be found in The Entomologist, vol. 

 xvii., p. 285, and in Trans. Ent. Soc. Loud., October, 1886. If he 



