218 THE entomologist's record. 



Fabricius {ride., British Noctuae and their Varirtira, i., p. G). It was 

 captured in the New Forest in 1895. 



Ojiorahia dilittata. — An aberration with pale f>round colour and 

 dark central band, captured at Southborou,<i:h in 1890. 



IIi/b('r)iia li'Hcojihai'aiia. — Two forms of this common species, one 

 the well-marked aberration, colloquially known as the "dark-banded 

 form " ; the other an extreme melanic aberration. Both specnnens 

 were captured in the New Forest in the spring of 1895. 



Sphinx pinastri as a British Insect. 



By Rev. 0. PICKARD CAMBRIDGE, M.A.. F.E.S. 



Under this heading Mr. Tutt gives us an abstract of all the 

 information he is able to obtain to date, bearing on the question ; and 

 he concludes, " if anyone can show just cause and impediment why 

 SpJii)i.r j)ijia^tri should not be considered a native of our Islands, let 

 him declare it." Whether the facts, which I feel thus called upon 

 now to state, may or may not have some bearing on the question, I 

 cannot say, because it would be necessary first to decide in what 

 sense we are using the term " British," or a " native of our Islands," 

 but, at any rate, the following facts Avere, I think, almost certainly 

 not known to Mr. Tutt when he compiled his notes [Ent. Fur., vii.. 

 No. 6., p. 132). I communicated them at the time to the then editor 

 of the Entoiiioloi/ist, Mr. Carrington, who, however, beyond 

 acknowledging their receipt, took no further notice of them ; I also 

 more recently communicated them to Lord Walsingham, in fact, just 

 after the first captures of S. jnnastri by Lord Rendlesham. From Lord 

 Walsingham I received no reply at all. The facts I allude to are 

 these : In 1H80 or 1881, I cannot now be absohitely certain which, 

 Mr. Hugo Harpur-Crewe told me that some member or members of 

 his brother's (Sir V. H. -Crewe's) family, then residing in Suffolk, had 

 captured specimens of N. jiiitastri in a small fir plantation in his 

 grounds. I was naturally much interested in hearing of this occur- 

 rence, and, on what seemed to me such excellent authority, I asked him 

 to lose not a moment in communicating the fact to the entomo- 

 logical journals ; no such communication, however, appeared, and so 

 subsequently, in a personal interview (in August, 1881) with Mr. Hugo 

 Crewe, I asked why no record of it had been publicly made ; he, after 

 a little pressure, told me in efiect that the occurrence was not a 

 genuine one, but that some trickery (by way of joke) had been played 

 in the matter. Ho far as I could gather, the pup;? from Avhich the 

 insects had emerged had been brought from the Continent, and 

 planted for the purpose of the insect being afterwards turned up as 

 British. When writing this to Mr. Carrington, I mentioned that 

 although this occurrence had not been, and probably would not be 

 published, yet it had been known and talked about in the neighbour- 

 hood where it occurred, and very possibly it would be followed by-and- 

 bye by other occurrences in the same district. These did occur, ridi'., 

 Kntomohxjifit, 1881, vol. xiv., and 1882, xv., p. 210 (and also in 

 subsequent years). What connection, if any, these may have had with 

 the occurrence I have noted I cannot say ; or whether the first 

 occurrence noted by Lord Rendlesham, or that by Mr. Cooper, Ent., 

 xix., p. 14, may have had any connection with it I know not, but, at 



