CURRENT NOTES. 209 



credited. Was it because they did not use reaping machines? It is 

 refresliing, however, to know that tlieir agricultural methods have 

 since been proved to be fully correct. We suppose Mr. Dale means to 

 say, that the fact of their carrying on these operations was discredited 

 but has been proved to be correct. But why could not Mr. Dale say 

 what he meant ? 



Mr. Nash, of Standish Vicarage, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, has 

 re- discovered the fact that the larva of Cosuns h'gm'perda pupates 

 during winter underground in an earthen cocoon. The full-fed larva 

 of C. liijniperda always winters in a cocoon, frequently an earthen 

 cocoon, and changes to a pupa in the following spring, the moth emerging 

 in July. 



The Rev. W. F. Johnson, M.A., F.E.S., reports (Irish Naturalist, 

 April) that, on the N.W. coast of Ireland, in the neighbourhood of 

 Donegal, sugar in 1894 " was not a success, and melanic forms were 

 entirely absent." In 1893, " matters were quite the reverse, sugar 

 was most productive, and dark forms abounded ;" 87 specimens of 

 Lepidoptera were met with, of which 60 were new to the district. 



Hr. F. Schille, not finding in any of the books to which he had 

 access, save in Speyer's Deutsche SchmetterlingsTcnnde, any mention of 

 the double-broodedness of Stntiroims fagi,reconnts{Societ. Entom., April 

 1st) his own experience of the species in the valley of the Poprad 

 river in the neighbourhood of the Carpathians. On April 29th, 1893, 

 he beat a freshly-emerged S from a birch, and in the following year, 

 on May 1st, secured an impregnated $ which laid KJ eggs, 15 of which 

 yielded larva3, although only five of these went on to pupation. The 

 eggs were laid between the 1st and 4th of May ; the larva? hatched 

 May 21-23, and were fed throughout on beech. The changes of skin 

 occurred as follows: — I. June 4-(5; II. June 12-15; III. June 19-21; 

 IV. July 1-3. The first larva pupated on July 18th, and an imago 

 ( $ ) emerged August 4th. The writer supplements his own experience 

 by that of Werchratski, who found at Ober-Uhrynow on Sept. 3rd, 

 1884, a full-grown and also a very young larva ; the latter was reared 

 on oak, on which the larvfe were found, and pupated at the end of 

 October, the imago appearing in the following spring. 



Mr. Eugen Mory, of Basel, records (Societ. Entom., April 1st) an 

 instance of parthenogenesis in Bomhyx querciis that occurred last 

 summer. He was breeding moths from pupa? and killing them as soon 

 as their wings were expanded ; he is quite certain that a <? and $ 

 were never in the box at the same time ; nevertheless, a week or two 

 later, the box was swarming with larvae of the species; these "fed with 

 excellent appetite on the willow leaves I presented to them and, with 

 a dozen more gathered from willows in our neighbourhood, are now 

 hibernating in my garden." We shall look with interest for informa- 

 tion as to the further career of this brood. 



In a short note {lusekteii Burse, April 1st) on " Winter Mreeding," 

 Herr Kauwald, of Halle, states that he found a small larva of Triphaena 

 pronaha in September. It fed well on " Brauukohl " and " Weisskohl." 

 When the cold began, the room in which it was being reared was 

 warmed and was kept warm throughout the winter. The larva buried 

 itself in November and the imago, a thoroughly well-developed speci- 

 men, appeared in March. The writer found that the larva of Uropteryx 

 samhucaria, did not feed at all during the winter although kept in a 



