62 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD, 



than usual last autumn, especially those of L. sorhi and L. emherizae- 

 penrlla. As regards the former, the mine is found on the leaflets of 

 mountain ash, and closely resembles that of L. ijomifolit'lla. With us 

 the species seems very local, being confined to one small strip of 

 plantation, and only occurring on young trees. There is a good deal 

 of the food-plant in the district ; but, up to the present, I have failed 

 to find the mines anywhere except in the plantation. — (Rev.) C. D. 

 Ash, M.A., Skipwith Vicarage, Selby. 



New Fokest ix 1896. —As a summary of my work in the New Forest 

 last year, I may say that in the spring I found larva-beating pretty 

 productive, although A^^phalia ridms and Apatura iris were scarcer 

 than usual. Of the lichen-feeders, the larvae of Lithosia deplana, 

 Aventia jiexida, Cleora lichenaria and C. f/labraria, there were plenty, 

 and larvffi of Boarmia ahietaria and B. rohoraria were unusually 

 plentiful. Imagines of Triphaena subs'equa were taken in June as well 

 as September, and Epunda luhdcnta was captured in the latter month. 

 In the autumn there were again plenty of larviE of B. rohoraria, 

 Tcplirosia extersaria, Kurijmene dolabraria, and (linophria rubricollis, 

 and those of Acronicta leporina were also fairly abundant. Butterflies 

 were in great numbers everywhere that I collected this summer ; but 

 the absence of I'l/raineis cardui and Colias cdiisa, and the rarity of 

 Vanessa io and Pijrameis atalanta have been very noticeable. — J. C. 

 MoBERLY, M.A., F.E.8. February, 1897. 



BOMBYX QUERCCrS TAKING PROBABLY ONLY ONE YEAR TO COMPLETE ITS 



METAMORPHOSES IN CAITHNESS. — I sciid you the following observations 

 of mine, as throwing doubt on the generally received idea that Bombij.v 

 ijuercits (/) in the North of Scotland, and at high elevations, is always an 

 insect that takes two years to go through its changes. The locality I 

 am dealing with is on the borders of Caithness, and is a wild, bare, 

 cold moorland country, averaging, I should think, 700 feet above the sea 

 level, where I found the insect. From the end of May until the middle 

 of June, I found and examined great quantities of cocoons (about 150 on 

 one occasion in about half an hour). These cocoons were all empty, 

 at least, all with the exception of a very few, which produced, not 

 moths, but ichneumons — a large black and yellow species — about the 

 middle of June. Two local gamekeepers told me that large brown 

 woolly moths, similar, in their opinion ,toB. rnbi, which I was able to catch 

 and show them, were common on the moors in July and August, and that 

 they had been particularly common the previous year at the beginning 

 of the grouse shooting season (Aug. 12th, and after). Now, as to the 

 larvae. I wrote in my diary on May 27th, " the heather is covered with 

 them : one sees them at every step ; they are from one and a half to 

 two and a half inches long," and on June 18th, I wrote, "collected a 

 number to take home ; most of them will, I think, moult once more." 

 They all died. Now, it seems to me that these larvse were far too 

 forward for the B. calJunae^ or two-years' variety. They were nearly 

 as forward as ijuercits would be in the South of England. And I think 

 they were forward enough to produce imagines that same summer, in 

 July and August, at the time when the keepers said they had seen large 

 woolly moths common on the moors. Certainly that race of Bout hij.v could 

 not have been in the habit of emerging in June, when I believe 

 vallunae, or the two-year variety, does emerge, for if it had done so, 

 how was it that all the cocoons which I found in May and June were 



