SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSKRVATIONS. 93 



rounded. Eggs laid in box. [Described August 24th, 1906. Female, 

 from Chiswick.l — Alfred Sich. 



j^ClENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The dkinking-habits of the moths of the genus Catocala. — I have 

 just seen your note in thecurrent number of the I'hit. tlec. (vol. xix., p. 263) 

 concerning the drinking habit of Catocala ni<pta. Until this summer, 

 this habit of the Catucaia species was not known to me, but I suppose 

 it is a normal one. Catocala conversa swarmed in thousands in the 

 Sebdou district in late June and July, and I several times saw it 

 drmking at springs and on damp patches. One day in particular, 

 July 18th, there were numbers of them drinking at a spring at the 

 foot of the mountain of Sidi Yahai, 14 kilometres west of Sebdou 

 This spring fills a small lake in winter-time, but in summer the water 

 is conducted away for irrigation purposes. The lake- bed remains 

 damp, and, sitting on it, in full daylight, were thousands of C. conversa 

 drinking. Waterplants grow in the spring itself, and the C. conversa 

 were sitting also on the leaves of these plants, drinking the running 

 water. I'hey would often settle right in the water and were sometimes 

 carried away by the stream and drowned. When disturbed they would 

 fly off in clouds. The ilex trees in the district were stripped by the 

 larvffi, all the first growth of leaves being eaten, and, in many cases, the 

 old winter-leaves as well, leaving the trees bare, but after the larvas 

 have spun up, the trees throw out a fresh crop of leaves, and by 

 autumn they look all right again. Many larvae spin their cocoons 

 amongst the old leaves of the trees, others drop, and spin up amongst 

 dead leaves or in bushes. The ilex trees have a bad time in Algeria, 

 but they are evidently used to it. Catocala conversa is the chief enemy, 

 but there are many others, such as C. nyinphagoga, C. dilecta (which 

 produces some fine dark forms), C. pro)iiissa, a very large Geometrid, 

 rather local but in tremendous quantity where it occurs, Bitlnjn [Thecla) 

 qitercm and several Noctuids. I'orthetria (Ly)iiantria) disj)ar, too, is 

 fairly common on ilex, and probably sometimes does as much harm as 

 Catocala conversa. — H. Powell, F.E.S., 7, Rue Mireille, Hyeres. 

 November 20( fi, 1907. 



Cross-pairing of Anthrocerids. — I was interested also on reading 

 your record {antea, vol. xix., p. 260) of the pairing of Anthrocera 

 ochsenheUneri with A. carniolica. I obtained last summer, 1906, 

 A. achilleae paired with A. piirpuraiis {ininos). — H. Powell, F.E.S., 

 Hyeres. November 20th, 1907. 



Early Chinese description of the leaf-insect. — " Yuen-kien- 

 lui-han," a Chinese encycloptedia completed in 1708, torn, cdxlvi., 

 fol. 9, b, has the following quotation from the "Tau-hwang-tsah-luh," 

 written c. ninth century : " In Nan-hai, a peculiar manner of bees (or 

 wasps) live on the kan-lan tree [Canarinm pi uwla or C.albtnn). Hhey 

 look as if this tree's leaves were grown with hands and legs, where- 

 with to grasp branches, and so deftly adpress themselves thereto that 

 they are quite indistniguishable from the foliage. Therefore, to collect 

 them the southern people used to fell the tree first and await the 

 withering and falling of its leaves; and only then they are enabled to 

 discern and gather the insects, which they employ as philter." 

 Nan-hai, literally, " Southern Sea," was anciently the appellation of a 



