1908.] 41 



wards learned, in another wood a few miles away, Mr. 15. Morley was also astonished 

 to find the species in immense multitudes; indeed, in a paper on tlie subject 

 (Naturalist, November, 1907, pp. 392-4) lie states that the species was " in a count- 

 less swarm. * * * To walk about tin: wood meant killing them at every step. 

 The herbage and bushes were simply alive with them, everything was spangled all 

 over with their white wings. But evidences of tragedy abounded everywhere — 

 bodiless wings littered the ground ; thousands were drowned in the stream ; hope- 

 lessly deformed examples were crawling about on every hand, crippled in every 

 conceivable way." The large number of specimens suggested to Mr. Morley the 

 probability of '' varieties " among them, and he was not disappointed, for he was 

 able to pick out a magnificent series comprising " all sorts of forms," from very pale 

 with few marks, to the fine melanic lead-coloured form which was found in some 

 abundance a few years ago by the York collectors at Sledmere on the Yorkshire 

 Wolds, and of which form Mr. Morley picked up a few beautiful examples among 

 the hosts of the species. 



My primary object in writing this note is because in the " List of Yorkshire 

 Lepidoptera " I specially note this lead-coloured form as an illustration of melanism 

 not occurring in the smoky South-west Riding of Yorkshire, i.e., in the area where 

 melanism has been chiefly noticed ; but as occurring in the Sledmere district, where 

 there is no smoke, and but little other melanism. Now, of course, the illustration will 

 no longer hold good, for although no trace of melanism in ulmata has ever previously 

 been seen in the Huddeisfield district, apparently there only wanted either a suffi- 

 cient number of specimens to bring it out, or else it is the direct result of some 

 exceptional circumstance. I think the latter supposition the more probable on 

 account of the large percentage of crippled or diseased specimens which has always 

 accompanied the melanism in this species. Exactly the same thing occurred at 

 Sledmere. For several consecutive seasons prior to 1901 the species occurred in 

 profusion, with the melanic and intermediate forms common, but always accompanied 

 by thousands of crippled examples. About that date the disease apparently worked 

 itself out, for since then the- insect has been quite a scarce species in the wood, and 

 scarcely a variety to be found. This points to the variation in this species as being 

 caused by disease, and it will be interesting to observe whether Huddersfield will 

 furnish a parallel case. Why too this particular insect should occur in such extra- 

 ordinary numbers in a season when nearly all other species were exceptionally scarce 

 is a problem which is probably beyond solution at present. — Geo. T. Pokkitt, 

 Edgerton, Huddersfield : January 6th, 1908. 



Note on the genus Antecerococcus, Green. — In the Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 

 p. 560 (1900), I erected the genus Antecerococcus to contain a species (A. puncti- 

 ferns) in which the test of the adult female was incomplete and not separable from 

 the body of the insect. The test was also characterized by the presence of tufts of 

 glassy filaments. The insect itself was in no wise distinguishable from a typical 

 Cerococcus. 



The subsequent examination of further material in a more advanced stage of 

 development shows me that A. punctiferus eventually develops a complete test 

 freely separable from the body of the insect, and that it then loses more or less 



D 



