mi*.] 205 



Notes on the breeding of Cateremna terebrella, Zlc., and Retinia resinella, L. 

 — Last Easter I collected, near Salniiinster, S. Prussia, a number of the full- 

 sized resin cocoons of Reti7iia resinella, L., which were not uncommon on the 

 Scots Pine, isolated trees between the ages of 10-30 years being most prolific. 

 I brought them back with me to Oxford, and from the 34 bred out only 8 

 specimens of the Tortricid between May 7th and 23rd (though 11 dead pupse 

 were afterwards found to be present), but quite a number of other insects. 

 Several Ernobius mollis, L. (Coleop.), walked up out of the twigs or cocoons 

 after I had had them a fortnight, and likewise an undetermined Cecidomyid in 

 some numbers, the empty white pupa skins being found loose in the box after- 

 wards, and finally 5 $ $ and 15 ? ? of a Braconid, identified for me by 

 Mr. Claude Morley as Macrocentrus abdomxnalis, Fab., emerged between June 3rd 

 and 20th, just four weeks after the Retinia. 



During the same visit I collected about 40 dwarfed spruce-cones from the 

 ground in a " stand" at Bad-Soden, containing larvae of Cateremna terebrella. The 

 first thing that emerged, about a dozen of it in all, was a small as yet 

 undetermined Dipteron, and shortly after (April 28th), a <J Caccecia musculana, 

 Hb., whilst the first Cateremna, a $ , emerged on May 20th, and others making 

 a total of 6 $ $ and 2 $ <j> appeared up to June 3rd. The cones contained 

 some 8 or 10 full-grown larvae and nymphs of a species of Rhaphidia which 

 safely completed their metamorphoses ; these were probably responsible for the 

 small yield of the Lepidopteron ! A single specimen of the Braconid, Phane- 

 rotoma planifrons, Nees, $ , was also bred. On opening the cones last week, I 

 found one of them still to contain afull-giwvn healthy larva. H. G. Champion, 

 Heatherside, Horsell, Woking : July 10th, 1914. 



Earwigs at " sugar." — I did not commence sugaring for moths until about 

 the middle of June this year. As a rule I am (like most other collectors) 

 pestered with large members of the common earwig (Forficula auricularia) at 

 my sugar, and this year has been no exception to the rule, with this difference 

 that instead of fully grown specimens enormous members of very young ones 

 from one-third to half-grown have appeared, with only about one in a hundred 

 fully grown. What can be the reason, and has the dry weather in May and 

 early June had anything to do with the disappearance of the matured specimens ? 

 — J. Gardner, Laurel Lodge, Hart : July 8th, 1914. 



A note on Psylla hippophaes, Forst. — Mr. Edwards records but two localities 

 for this Homopteron in Britain in 1896, and I have seen no further notices of 

 it ; these are Deal, whence it was introduced as British by Scott in 1876, and 

 Winterton on the east Norfolk coast, where I also have collected, but failed to 

 discover the present species, for which I was not especially looking at that time. 

 It is found exclusively upon the Sea Buckthorn {Hippophae rhamnoides), the 

 rarity of which is evidenced by its record from only seven of the hundred and 

 twelve divisions into which Britain is divided in the London Catalogue of 

 plants ; the Psylla is consequently equally or more local, though probably 

 common wherever its pabulum occurs. 



