SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 109 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



On the double-broodedness of Cidaria silackata and Ephyra 

 OMiCRONARiA (annulata). — Cidaria silaceata invariably has two broods 

 in Devonshire ; the first appears early in May, the second e;'.rly in 

 August. In the warm summer of 1893 there were three broods, at 

 least a few individuals of a third brood emerged at the end of 

 August, the rest going over (I recorded this unusual event in the 

 Record for that year). The specimens of the early brood are a little 

 larger, and have the dark band divided, or partly divided, by the 

 longitudinal lines — an entire band being the exception ; the specimens 

 of the autumn brood, on the other hand, generally have the band 

 entire, and it is the exception to meet with longitudinal lines. Ephyra 

 omicronaria is also double-brooded with us, generally occurring a 

 week or so later than C silaceata. It has not been so abundant 

 as usual this year ; but the males (of the second brood) both of 

 it and of C. silaceata have been attracted by light, which has been 

 infrequently- the case hitherto. Have other entomologists noticed 

 the difficulty in procuring eggs this season ? I have failed to get 

 any fertile ones from both the above-named species as well as others. — 

 W. S. Riding, M.D., F.E.S., Buckerell Lodge, nearHoniton. Sejjt. 

 5th, 1895. 



Eupithecia succenturiata and subfulvata. — Dr. Freer's note on 

 these species [ante, p. 43) has interested me greatly, as I have 

 recently been giving some attention to them, and think there is still 

 room for some thoroughgoing investigation into the question of their 

 specific distinctness, such as I have previously undertaken as regards 

 Coremia ferrugata and ('. unidentaria , I shall be very glad if this note 

 is the means of eliciting opinions based on careful observation. For 

 my own part, I have a perfectly open mind on the subject, and in 

 fact have not even got so far as to form a definite opinion one way 

 or the other. Herr Otto Bohatsch, writing in Staudinger's Iris for 1893 

 (vol. vi., p. 30), decides to re-unite them — as had been already done 

 by Treitschke, Herrich-Schaeffer, Guenee and Snellen — having received 

 from Dr. Staudinger, from Asia Minor, the intermediate form dis- 

 parata, Hb., and he adds that "the larvae, in spite of different 

 food-plants, are identical." I may remark here that Snellen once 

 took the two typical forms in cop. As for the different food-plants, which 

 are given by German authors as mugwort for E. snccoUuriata and 

 yarrow for E. subfulvata, neither species is exclusive in its diet. 

 I communicated to Herr Bohatsch my own experience at Sandown in 

 1893 : a 2 of -E. succenturiata laid me one egg, and as I was anxious 

 to make acquaintance with the larva, I took the trouble to rear it ; 

 rather curiously, the very first bit of mugwort which I gathered for 

 it, when it was about to hatch, had on it four Eupithecia eggs, which 

 I also kept, assuming them to be of the same species ; these I took 

 care not to mix with the other. Later on I beat another E. succen- 

 turiata larva out of the same food-plant. During the whole larval 

 period no particular difference betAveen them struck me ; but I 

 unfortunately made no comparisons, having made up my mind that 

 I had only the one species. The result, however, proved that the four 

 eggs found were those of E. subfulvata, and since my attention has 

 been called to the fact, I find that I nearly always beat the imago 



