276 THE entomologist's record. 



of the iJailij Mail, and 'My Pocket Novels.' " A number of enigmatical 

 letters, found on our return from the Continent towards the end of 

 August, among accumulated correspondence, was explained a week 

 later by a friend sending us the following cutting from the Daili/ Mail 

 (published during our absence) : — " Fatal Edelweiss. — Our Geneva 

 correspondent writes that Mr. Tutt, F.E.S., of London, who was climb- 

 ing in the mountains near Geneva in search of insects, got on a ledge 

 whence he could neither advance nor retreat. Fortunately, Mr. Mus- 

 champ, an English resident of Geneva, saved him from his dangerous 

 position." This was the first knowledge we had of this serious matter, 

 and, as only two or three people had the slightest notion that we were 

 in Geneva in the company of Mr. Muschamp, the canard would, one 

 suspects, not be difficult to trace; but, stupid as it is in worrying one's 

 friends, one wonders whether all the rest of the remarkable Alpine 

 accidents published by this paper are as sublimely true as this. 



Mr. C. 0. Waterhouse, F.E.S., has published a supplement of some 

 320 generic names, not mentioned in the Index Zoologicns, published 

 a short time since by the Zoological Society of London. Of the 320 

 names, 250 are neither in Scudder's Nomenclator nor in the Index 

 Zooloi/icas, whilst 70, although in the Komemiator, are without date, 

 or are incorrect in some respects. The supplement is to be obtained 

 of 0. E. Janson and Son, 44, Great Russell Street, W.C, and its 

 price is Is. 



In the Ent. Mo. May., for August, Arkle renames Aplecta nebulosa 

 ab. robsoni, Collins, and calls it " var. thowpsoni, Arkle." It is un- 

 fortunate that only a short diagnosis of ri)b.soni was ever published, but 

 comparison with the original type in our collection shows that the 

 latter agrees absolutely with Arkle's description. We cannot under- 

 stand why the latter in his remarks speaks of " var. robsoni, Tutt," 

 instead of " var. robsoni, Collins." It is correctly named in The British 

 Noctuae and their Yarietiea, vol. iii., pp. 68-69. 



In the EntoYii., p. 240, Mr. W. J. Lucas records " the purple loose- 

 strife " as not one of the usual foodplants of Saturnia paronia. It is 

 surely one of the best known in the fens, and is mentioned among the 

 very first of the fifty foodplants for this species noticed in British Lepi- 

 doptera, vol. iii., p. 883. He also asks whether the presence of 

 " orange " and " pink" tubercles is due to sex or age ? A full account 

 of the colour variation of these tubercles (which may be yellow, orange, 

 pink, white, black or purple), and Poulton's and Dixey's breeding 

 experiments to obtain fa3ts relating to them will be found op. cit., 

 pp. 825-826. Our official entomologists must not fall behind the 

 times. 



Mr. T. Gristoek Brande states in the Entom., xxxvii., p. 264, that 

 he has a "British" example of Papilio podalirius in his collection, cap- 

 tured at Marlborough, in 1870, by a boy at the College. Mr. Brande 

 thinks it was an immigrant. Surely, considering the large number of 

 pupte that have been annually disposed of to British collectors by the 

 dealers for nearly a century, it is ten thousand times more likely to 

 have been an escape. One would suppose that any specimen caught, 

 at least after 1820, when Stephens and Curtis became active ento- 

 mologists, would, in all probability, be an "escape." Such speci- 

 mens can have no value faunistically. 



