12 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



commencement of April I searched round the poplars here for Trochilium. 

 apij'orme. Old mines were in abundance, but larvte were hard to get 

 without injury, and apparently by no means plentiful. In the end I 

 secured half-a-dozen, but of these only one emerged safely. During 

 the first week of April I found ^Eyeria culiciformis was beginning to 

 pupate, an exceptionally early date. A friend having given me an 

 Essex locality for ^Hyeria sphetjiforinis, I paid a visit there and secured, 

 as I hoped, half-a-dozen larvae, but of these only two proved later on 

 to contain mature larv;ie, while two were immature and have continued 

 feeding through the summer, and the others were old. On April 17th, 

 Hemerophila abriiptaria commenced to appear in the breeding-cages, 

 and continued for a considerable time ; and a search for ^Hgeria 

 forviicifoniiis in a local osier-bed resulted in a few mines, but of 

 these nearly all produced ichneumons, only one imago and one 

 Trochilium crabronifonne emerging successfully. I found that the 

 larvfe of ^i^c/eria furniicifoniiis apparently feed on only one species of 

 osier, and, as that particular species is being replaced by other mor6 

 valuable sorts, the prospect of my filling my row is not over bright. On 

 April 25th, Aleucis pictaria, Eiipithecta piuiiilata and Selenia illiinaria 

 appeared, and I bred Eupithecia albipunctata on May 1st. I see that I 

 have a note, on May 6th, of a pairing of Hemeropkila abruptaria, after 

 they had been together for 72 hours. It is strange how insects vary in 

 this respect ; some species pair immediately on the emergence of the 

 female, others, as in this case, go for days before pairing takes place. 

 During the second week of May I was again in Kent. A search for larva 

 of ^Egeria sphegi/ormis was fruitless, but I found one old mine which 

 proved that the insect existed in the locality, and I must try there 

 again. My trip was not, however, altogether a waste of time for I 

 secured plenty of larvje of Eupithecia debiliata in a wood where 

 bilberry was plentiful, and these emerged very satisfactorily later on. 

 With them were larvae of H-ypsipetes elutata and Boannia repandata 

 on the bilberry. Two or three days later Eupithecia coronata com- 

 menced to emerge from larvse beaten the previous August from 

 hawthorn and blackthorn. At Whitsuntide I went north to Eoss- 

 shire where I spent a week. I took a quantity of pupte with me and 

 from these Mimas tiliae, Hypsipetes elutata and Lomaspilis umrginata 

 appeared during the next few days. Of native insects I found 

 Eupitliecia satyrata, Cidaria suff'muata, Ematurga piniaria, E. atouiaria, 

 Cidaria corylata with some very handsome aberrations, and Hypsipetes 

 impluviata was fairly common. At the end of the month, I moved 

 to Kinloch-Rannoch, where I spent nearly three weeks, very success- 

 fully so far as larvie were concerned, but the weather was unfavourable 

 for perfect insects. J^geria scoliaeformis was just pupating, and with 

 hard work I secured a fair bag. A day on the hilltops gave me a 

 dozen and a half Psodos trepidaria pupae, but no Farhnubia alpina 

 were found. At the level of the Loch, larvae of Plusia interrogationis, 

 Fidonia pinetaria, Larentia didymata, Odontopera bidentata, . Uporabia 

 filigrummaria, and ' 0. dilutata were common in their respective 

 localities. I found the Oporabia larvfe on heather, birch, and alder. 

 Those from heather emerged from the middle of August till the middle 

 of September, while the birch-feeding ones emerged through 

 September till the middle of October. They form a very varied 

 series, and I am by no means sure that I can correctly separate the 



