188 [January, 



stretch of brown peat-bog were one or two Amphisa Oerningana, and on the slope 

 above this Mixodia /ScAwZ^fana appeared in great numbers, but no other species along 

 with them, and as the distant mountain peaks were beginning to disappear in the 

 clouds I hurried on, as the lovely day was evidently to be of short duration. 



When close to the hill-top I found a Crambus flying, one that I had never seen 

 before. It was entirely confined to the summit of the hill, and to the ground 

 sloping down, perhaps twenty-five or thirty feet from the top. There were several 

 rocky points, and immediately below and surrounding those rocky points, dry, 

 springy turf, very short grass, and patches of mountain blaeberry, and another 

 plant the name of which I forget. The moth took quick short flights and invariably 

 settled on the ground, never once on the grass : most likely the habit of alighting on 

 the ground is for the purpose of concealment. At rest on the brown peaty soil with 

 little fragments of the dry whitened herbage of the past season scattered about, C. 

 furcatellus was almost invisible, had it rested on a blade of grass or other green 

 thing, it must in the bright sunshine and clear mountain air have formed a con- 

 spicuous object, and be more liable to the attacks of birds. A pair of meadow 

 Pipits (Anthus pratensisj nesting a little bit down from the hill-top and who had 

 that wondrous tameness and fearlessness that most wild creatures seem to possess 

 who choose for their summer homes those lonely solitudes where man rarely intrudes, 

 most Drobably took measures to prevent C. furcatellus becoming too abundant. 



It was not inclined to rise often on the wing imless disturbed, so I trudged up 

 and down for two hours and secured some, and then saw that heavy clouds were 

 drifting towards the place, and as I had a stretch of hill-bog to cross where land- 

 marks were sadly wanting, I made a start for home and just reached the glen in 

 time to escape a deluge. — Jane Feaser, 18, Moray Place, Edinburgh : November 

 21th, 1882. 



Sericomyia borealis. — Some of your readers will remember a note of mine in 

 this Magazine for December, 1881, on Sericomyia borealis " singing " while at rest. 

 This note elicited interesting letters from Mr. Swinton, of Guildford, and Mr. Hel- 

 lins, of Exeter. Curiously enough, Mr. Hellins' letter answers, at least in part, a 

 question which was asked nearly thirty years ago, but has apparently hitherto re- 

 ceived no answer. 



In the Naturalist, for 1852, page 177, Mr. J. C. Dale gives an extract from a 

 letter sent by Mr. Paris, the son of Dr. Paris, to Mr. Curtis ; it is as follows : " I 

 also wanted to ask you the name of an insect which bothered me occasionally when 

 I wanted to be quiet and enjoy a fine view, but, unfortunately, I neglected to procui'e 

 a specimen, and, unless you happen to have visited the spot they haunt, my descrip- 

 tion will not be sufficient. On the summits of the Dartmoor tors, not only on the 

 highest rock, I was always assailed by a multitude of flies, bearing a resemblance to 

 the bee (but not what we used at school to call " darting flies "), which came by two 

 or three, increasing in number every moment, flying and buzzing in my face, until I 

 was forced to a precipitate retreat. When they settled on the rock they began a 

 very harmonious piping, to which I could willingly have listened, had the rest of the 

 band desisted from their persecution. I defy any person to stand quiet for five 

 minutes on the top of one of these tors. If you have visited Dartmoor, I am sure 

 you must have noticed them." 



