186 [January, 



" The greater portion of the impression of Plate xvi having been destroyed by 

 white ants, members and correspondents are requested to abstain from binding 

 Yol. i, Part ii, 1881, until they have received a copy of it." 



This is both interesting and serious, as showing the danger to which scientific 

 and literary work is exposed in India; and it is curious from a purely literary point 

 of view. — Id. : December Sth, 1883. 



Capture of Fhaneroptera falcata, Scop., in England. — In September, 1881, 

 while walking along the cliffs near the little fishing village of Porthgwarra, in the 

 Land's End district, I captured a single specimen of Phaneroptera falcata, Scop., at 

 rest on the grass near the foot path. 



This very conspicuous and beautiful Orthopteron belongs to the OryllidcB of 

 Stephens, = Locustina of Burmeister and Fischer, and has not hitherto been re- 

 corded as captured in England. According to Fischer, it occurs in S. Eussia, S. 

 Q-ermany, Switzerland, S. France, and Egypt, and there ai'c specimens in the British 

 Museum from Madeira. 



It is possible that it may be an imported specimen, if so, the nearest port 

 through which it could be introduced is Penzance, whichjis distant about ten miles, 

 as the crow flies. The Porthgwarra boats are small, and used for fishing near the 

 coast in fine weather, in fact, their only access to the sea is through a tunnel exca- 

 vated through the rock ; on the other hand it is also possible, considering the 

 Lusitanian character of the Flora of South-West Cornwall, that it may be an 

 indigenous species, and it is to be hoped that any entomologist meeting with any 

 species of this family either in Cornwall or the South-West of Ireland will preserve 

 it for examination. — Philip B. Mason, Burton-on-Trent : December, 1883. 



[If this fine and not specially destructive insect can be included in the very 

 limited list of British Orthojitera, it will be a grand addition. Personally, I incline 

 to the opinion that the specimen captured by Dr. Mason may have been imported by 

 some vessel bound up-channel from the Mediterranean. Many years ago, I had 

 given to me a living specimen of Locusta viridissima found on board a ship in mid- 

 channel. As that ship was homeward-bound from the east {via the Cape), the 

 natural inference was that the insect had flown on board in the channel, either from 

 the French or English side. In Brunner von Wattenwyl's " Prodromus der 

 europJiischen Orthopteren " (1882), a very worthy expansion of Fischer's Monograph 

 of 1853, and describing about double the number of European species given in 

 Fischer, the northern distribution of Fh. falcata is stated as 48° in Europe proper. 

 — B. McLachlan.] 



Some further remarTcs on Nepticulce. — Soon after the publication of my last notice 

 concerning the pupation of iVep^/ct<Z£8, in the Ent. Mo. Mag. for June, 1883 (pp. 17, 

 18), I was surprised to see freshly spun cocoons of Nep. sericopeza, both on the new, 

 half-developed keys, and on the young, fresh leaves of a maple tree. These cocoons 

 were all at, or near, the extremity of the lower boughs of a tree which grew on a 

 hedge-bank, the lower branches of wliich spread far across a considerable ditch, and 

 then over the pathway alongside of it. Now, whether these larvae had wintered in 



