260 THE entomologist's record, 



and takes the route to the nest by following the thread which was left 

 on the outward march." 



We have received from Mr. W. A. Luff, of Guernsey, a very 

 instructive paper, reprinted from tlie Transactions of the Guernsey 

 Society of Natural Science for 1894, on "The Aculeate-Hymeuoptera of 

 Guernsey." Mr. Luff gives an interesting epitome of the composition 

 of the group, and appends a list of 95 species taken in Guernsey and 

 of 45 taken in Jersey. 



That keen observer, " A Son of the Marshes," says in one of his 

 recent works (From Spring to Fall) — " The Queen of Spain Fritillary, 

 the High Brown Fritillary, and also the Silver-washed Fritillary, 

 when on flight, click with their strong wings. This I have heard 

 distinctly as the grand creatures have flown within a yard of me." 



Herr J. Sweyer contributes to Societas Entomologica for May 1st, a 

 very interesting paper on Ayr of is ripae var. ohotritica, Hering. This 

 moth was discovered by F. Schmidt, at Wismar, and there are some 

 notes on it by him in Stett. ent. Zeit. for 1858. In 1893 Speyer found 

 the larva? at Nieudorf on the Baltic ; the first were obtained on August 

 20th, by night searching with a lantern on Salsola kali, Cakile maritima, 

 and Atriplex maritimum, but others were afterwards secured by scraping 

 away the sand immediately around the food-plants. It was only 

 around plants actually growing in the sand, that they were to be met with ; 

 where there was a good deal of humus mixed with the sand, not 

 a specimen was to be found, although the food-plants were growing 

 there luxuriantly. The larva3 resemble those of A. exclamationis in 

 structure, habits and markings, but are decidedly lighter in colour ; 

 the young larvre are sometimes of an earthy coloration, sometimes of 

 a dirty or greenish-yellow ; when about to pupate their colour is a 

 whitish-yellow, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, and the author 

 is of opinion that the two forms are correlated with the forms of the 

 resulting imagines, some of which are entirely white, others of a 

 darker colour. Speyer reared his larva^ of which he obtained 50 in 

 all, in three boxes. The first box he filled to a depth of 24 inches with 

 sand from the place wdiere he got the larva?, the second with 9 inches 

 of the same sand, and the third with 21 inches of the sand mixed with 

 humus alluded to above. The 10 larva? placed in this last box seemed 

 uncomfortable, did not feed, remained under the food-plant, never 

 went into the earth, and finally perished with the exception of 

 one individual, which was experimentally transferred to Box No. L 

 " Two or three minutes after the transfer," says Speyer, "the creature 

 found itself so comfortable, that, as if it would take a bath, it rolled 

 itself hither and thither in the sand, and soon disappeared into it." It 

 was not noticed that the larva? showed any predilection for the drier 

 plants growing on the sand over the more juicy ones that grew on the 

 humus-mixed soil, nor vice versa ; both kinds were eaten with an 

 equal appetite ; it was, therefore, the humus- mixed soil that the 

 larva? did not like. By Sept. 28tli, the last specimen had disappeared. 

 Durin"- the winter, the sand in the boxes was moistened once a 

 fortnight with a flower-syringe. On May 10th, 1894, the sand in 

 Box No. 2 was turned over to see what had become of the 20 larvae 

 therein, and, to his astonishment, Speyer found that they had all 

 bored into the wooden bottom of the box, 1^-in. thick, and had 

 pupated in it. The pupa^ were transferred to another box, in which 



