214 [Feliruary, 



When the peas were taken into the barn on the 12th of December to be 

 threshed, an immense number of larvae of Caradrina cuhicularis, from half to full- 

 grown, were dislodged from the haulm. 



Having previously only known this species to infest wheat stacks, and seeing 

 these larviB to be rather greener than usual, I resolved to rear some of them, in the 

 hope of obtaining vai'ieties of the moths ; and accordingly secured eighty specimens, 

 most of which are now nearly full-grown, and inhabit cocoons formed of their food 

 and fragments of the peas and earth spun together. — Wii. Bttcklek, ith Jan., 1865. 



Noctua at sugar. — There can be little doubt that some influence with which we 

 are but very little acquainted regulates the abundance or scarcity of Noctuce at sugar. 

 Every year complaints are made as to the unproductiveness, in some places, of this 

 mode of collecting, while it has invariably happened that, in other locaUtics, the 

 result has been quite different. 



I have heard the complaint made of the past season, but my own experience 

 has been more agreeable, since, although I was only able to sugar occasionally, at 

 intervals generally of a week or more, I took the following Noctuce at sugar. 



In June — Ceropacha or, Acronycta aceris and ligxistri, Neuria saponarue, Hadena 

 adnsta and genistw, Aplecta advena, hcrhida and tincta, and Mamestra cmceps, the 

 last three very common. 



In July — Ceropacha duplaris and or, and Tripha-na fimbria. 



And in August — Cerigo cytherea, Noctiia neylecta, TripJuena interjecta, and 

 T. janthina, which last was very common. 



Besides Noctva; I met with many repi-esentatives of other families of Lepidop- 

 tera, an account of which I enclose.— C. G. Barrett, Haslemere. 



Capture of Agrophila sulpliuralis, with notice of its habits. — While searching in 

 Suffolk for Acidalia rubricata with the success already recorded in "The Magazine," 

 I met with two specimens of the above-named local species. The habit of this 

 pretty little Noctua appears, in this locality, to be much the same as in its Cam- 

 bridgeshire haunts, where I have had the pleasure of meeting with it. It starts 

 up from the ground herbage on one's approach, and then having flown sharply for 

 a short distance, soon settles again. It is, however, far more active during bright 

 and warm sunshine. 



Occasionally I have seen it settled on the flowers of knapweed (Centaur ea 

 nigra) and clover, the wings being neatly rooft>d at an acute angle, as is the case 

 with H. uncana. 



In hunting for this little beauty, a switch, for the purpose of brushing the 

 herbage, is of great advantage ; and in capturing it, the net should be quickly 

 placed over it as soon as one can get within reach. — F. Bond, 22nd December, 1864. 



Note to " The Egg State. — Management." — I have thought of the following 

 plan for keeping eggs in a natural state of dampness. I get a clean smooth piece 

 of that velvety moss which grows on old walls and cottage roofs, and having 

 carefully sprinkled the eggs over it, place it in a flower-pot together with the food 

 plant: as the eggs sink into the moss they cannot get shifted about; and, moreover, 

 the moss will not entangle the legs of the newly-hatched larvae^. I have some eggs 

 of L. cespitis treated so now, and waiting to be hatched in spring. Of course the 

 moss siioiild be growing. — Rev. J. Heli-ins, December, 1864. 



