NOTE8 ON COLIiKOTtNG, KTC. 21 1 



window congregating every day about the rabbit bumows, and tliey made 

 great execution among the innocents. Similarly, birtls i:; general in 

 ISd'S, failing to get their usual supply of worms, molluscs, etc., from 

 the arid pastures, were ravenous for larv;e and insects of all sorts. I 

 noticed chaffinches clearing a crop in my garden — of aphides. si sic 

 semper ! In Kerry, in June and July, though moths were plentiful, 

 not a single arboreal larva was to be beaten, or if so, about one each 

 half-hour -and I persevered long enough to test this thoroughly. On 

 the Continent, however, wherever dry hot summers are normal, there 

 is no lack of Lepidoptera of all sorts. But in France and Switzerland 

 birds are very scarce — especially our common small insectivorous 

 species. No doubt, too, as Mr. Tutt suggests, larvae that bury them- 

 selves often failed to get down into the hardened earth where stiff soil 

 exists, but sandhill Agrotids, etc., would not be so effected. Were such 

 genera and species distinctly rarer in 1894? I had no opportunity of 

 observing, but suggest the matter as one worthy of en(juiry. The 

 Dianthoeciae were notably scarce, but this was by reason of the great 

 dearth of Silene capsules, which I noticed in 189H. For the above 

 reasons I demur to the suggestion of the open mild winter having been 

 the predominating factor in producing in 1894 the scarcity of imagines 

 generally. Mr. Tutt's notes as to hybernating larvae and second 

 I)roods seem to me very probable explanatiims so far as they go. 

 We should invite testimony from all parts as to the scarcity or 

 abundance in 1894 of sandhill, bog, or moor species, internal feeders — 

 such as the Sesiidae and Eupithecia loyata, etc. ; such, also, as hybernate 

 as ova and emerge (1) early in the spring; (2) late. The cold spring 

 of 1894 no doubt killed off numbers of delicate early bi-oods of larv;e. 

 I think bog-haunting species were in normal abundance as well as 

 Tteniocamps, though the latter, perhaps, not quite up to the mark." 



Mr. J. C. Moberly (Southampton) writes on Feb. I9th :— " 7vly 



experience of the Ayrotidae this year is, that some were more abundant 

 and some less abundant than usual. A. nigricans and A. e.rdamaiiunis 

 were certainly as abundant as ever. A. aquilina and A. ohncuni 

 were not scarcer than usual at Wicken, and A. sinmlans seems to 

 have been more frequently met with both in Scotland and at Portland, 

 according to my correspondents. The same remark would seem to 

 apply to A. cnrsoria and A. frifici, but^. siujctwn, which is usually a [)est 

 at sugar and at flower-heads, in every variety and at every season, 1 

 hardly met with at all. It was strangely conspicuous by its absence. 

 A. saucia I did not see, and A. ypsilon only sparingly. In our neigh- 

 bourhood also, larvci? of such common species as Noclna festiva and 

 Trijphaenn orJtona were very scarce. The abundance of Ta^niocamps 

 at sallows last spring and the scarcity of spring larva^ after hybernation 

 go a good deal in the direction of Mr. Tutt's theory, but will that also 

 account for the comparative scarcity of the Xanfhidae — Scopelosoimi 

 satcllitia, Ayriopis aprilina, etc., in the autumn of 1894. Scsia fonuicae- 

 f or mis occun-ed very freely last year among the osiers in North Hants, 

 and, though the same cannot be said of S. spheijiforniis, as many were 

 observed this year as last in that locality. On the other hand, Trochilinin 

 (ipi/drmis seems to have disappeared this year at Wicken, where it was 

 also scarce last year. This may, perhaps, be accounted for by the hard 



work of some of tlie collectors there." Mr. J. J. F. X. King 



(Glasgow) writes on Foli. 2:>rd : — "The reason why certain insects 



