NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 237 



flowers, cowslips and anemone, Gagca spnthacca, liannvrnlns fimria, all 

 have their hyniennpterous visitors, eagerly drinking the healtli of the 

 season. The busy honey bee, a})pearing to our eyes less careless than 

 tlie rest, teaching its })roverbial lesson of eternal industry, seems tiiis 

 year particularly obtrusive. By tlie rows of silver bii'ches, feathering in 

 tender green, numberless pairs of Vanessd urtlcae are flirting; while 

 flying low, up the middle of the road through the wood, Gonctderyx 

 rhaiimi passes on in solitary search. The summer of 1895 may offer 

 some compensation for an unusually long winter and a lagging spring. — 

 A. R. Grote, Hildersheim, Germany. 



A HUNT FOR PiioRODESMA SMARAGDARiA. — In reference to the 

 remarks made {ante, p. 158) on this subject, I should like to be 

 allowed to say that it was in the month of July, 1845, that Mr. Douglas 

 captured Phorodesma smaragdaria at St. Osyth ; and perfect as was 

 the description of its larva given ]:)y him to the Entomological Society 

 of London in the year 1852, it left something to be desired with regard 

 to its food-plant. True that Mr. Ingall gathered up a pupa with a mass 

 of Artemisia maritima at Queenboro', in the Isle of She})pey, four years 

 later, but his notes having only just come to light (Eiitoia., vol. xxviii., 

 p. 40), it was left until until Mr. Machin's great success in taking the 

 larvai off sea wormwood before the food, as far as this country is 

 concerned, was placed on record in the somewhat inaccessible Trans- 

 actions of the Entomological Society of London. So far, then, the general 

 body of collectors had not received much assistance, and it only remained 

 for them to gather such information as was afforded by our entomo- 

 logical periodicals. For that jjurpose we have been referred to the 

 Entomologist for 1884, and there we find that Mr. Elisha, after a 

 description of the larva (which we had from Stainton's Manual, and 

 ShiekVs Practical Hints, some thirty years before), says " The exact 

 locality, and the food-plant, I must for obvious reasons at present dtcline to 

 state." Let us thank the men then who gave us the first information 

 respecting the food of the larva. They carefully worked Fobbing 

 Marsh, and soon learned the secret of the food-plant. This liapi)ened, 

 not " eight years ago," as Mr. Elisha seems to think, for nearly twice 

 that time has elapsed since these seekers after truth fulfilled the object 

 with which they set out. It may seem somewhat strange that the fact 

 of Mr. Elisha having read a paper on P. smaragdaria, should, in his 

 opinion, preclude anyone in future from alluding to the subject, or from 

 giving a short account of the method of taking it, for the benefit of our 

 younger readers ; but how anyone could so far distort my remarks into 

 an attack on our late respected fellow-worker, Mr. Machin, is l)eyond 

 my comprehension. — IIi:nry A. Auld, 31, Belmont Hill, Lee, S.E. 

 April 20th, 18'J5. 



Lasiocajii'a ilicifolia AT Cannock Chase. — In his remarks on the 

 sale of the late Mr. Machin's Lepidoptera "A Looker-on " seems rather 

 to doubt the fact that Lasiocampa ilicifolia used to be taken on Cannock 

 Chase. In this i)art of the world the name of Bonney is more than a 

 guarantee of genuineness. Tliat Mr. Bonney used to send considerable 

 numbers of this insect away to collectors, I have been told by his 

 brothers, who used to assist him to seareb for the larvte. That L. 

 ilicifolia is no longer to be found here, is, I fear, a fact. Dr. Freer lias 

 worked the Chase for many years ; and for seven years, during the last 

 four of which I have l)een collecting assiduously, 1 have lived \\ithin a 



