306 THE entomologist's record. 



<D D N A T A. 



Pugnacity of Anax imperator, Leach. — One afternoon in Jvme 

 last, on a brilliant day with no wind, at about 4 o'clock, round a 

 certain pond in Esher fir- woods, there were a great many J Anax on 

 the wing. One I struck at Avith a net but missed, and the insect began 

 to soar away above the trees. At this moment a <? of Lihellula qnadri- 

 macidata passed about a foot beneath it. Anax turned and swooped 

 like a hawk and then flew slowly away with its prey. I now managed 

 to capture both, but in the net Anax released its victim. On exam- 

 ination the latter proved to be nearly dead. The body was bent and 

 broken, one of the large compound eyes was severely dented, and the 

 pronotum was so damaged that the insect was unable to move its 

 head. It is possible that Anax pounced on L. quadrimaculata with the 

 intention of making a meal (Mr. Lucas has recorded a case of Anax 

 eating a specimen of Sywpetrum scoticmu), but it seems more probable 

 that he was indignant a^ L. quadriwaculata poaching on what he 

 deemed his preserves, as I have frequently seen a J Anax fly hawking 

 up and down a certain marked beat and return after chasing away 

 an intruder. — W. P. Penwick, F.E.S., The Gables, New Eoad, Esher. 

 November Srd, 1908. 



Change of colour in a Nymph. — Early in May last, at the same 

 pond, I dredged up an Agrionine nymph (species uncertain) among 

 some green water-weeds, which it closely resembles in colour. I 

 placed it in a vessel of water, at the bottom of which was mud, with 

 dead leaves, pieces of stick, etc., and, on looking at the nymph three 

 days later, I found that it had assumed the colour of the mud and was 

 quite brown, every trace of green having disappeared. Though the 

 nymph was, of course, carnivorous, it must have taken up a small 

 quantity of the weed to produce the green colour, and then, when that 

 was voided, some of the mud to produce the brown, thus protecting 

 itself against possible enemies. This power of assuming protective 

 colouring the nymph shares with another aquatic larva, that of Phry- 

 yania t/randis, which, it is recorded, when clad in a case formed by 

 portions of dead brown leaves, if placed in a vessel with fresh growing 

 water-plants, discards the old brown case, replacing it with a green 

 one, so that it resembles in colour its environment. — W. P. Fenwick. 



URRENT NOTES. 



In the Zoolo(/ist for November, Mr. Donisthorpe has a most inter- 

 esting note entitled " A few notes on Myrmecophilous spiders." 



At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London on Octo- 

 ber 21st, Mr. G. C. Champion showed a specimenof Pijtho depressus, Ij.jViiih. 

 two tarsi to the right hind-leg. It was bred from a larva or pupa found 

 under pine-bark at Binn, Switzerland, and the abnormal growth may 

 have been due to the attacks of other larvre kept in the same box. At 

 the same time Mr. E. C. Bed well exhibited examples of the rare 

 Lamellicorn beetle, Gnorimus variabilis, L., found by him in thick 

 frass under the bark of oaks, near Purley Oaks, Surrey, in the larval 

 state in May last, and again as imagines in the same locality in the 

 following month. He described the species as one becoming extinct 



