1906.] ]39 



recorded by liim in Ent. Mo. Mag., Ser. 2, xii, p. 27^. My capture interested me 

 all the more because it was my first acquaintance with P. lancealis " in the flesh," 

 and becaus<e I had given up all hope of discovering it in the district, which has 

 been closely worked dui'ing the last forty years,* the wood in question, with its 

 environs, having received special attention, and being the very last spot where one 

 would have expected to see it. The food-plant of the larva, Eupatorium carina- 

 binut?i, does not grow inside the wood, but occurs in a damp hollow just outside it, 

 and about one hundred and fifty yards from where the insect was flushed. —Eustace 

 R. Bankes, Norden, Corfe Castle : February 2Uh, 1906. 



Polia Jlavicincta, Fab., var. meridionalis, Bdv., in South Devon. — It seems 

 worthy of record that all the specimens of Polia flavicincta that I have taken on 

 the South Devon coast, where the species has been met with not uncommonly on the 

 Old Red Sandstone, are referable to var. meridional is, which is so local in Britain 

 that Mr. J. W. Tutt, in " The British Noctuse and their Varieties," vol. iii, p. 48 

 (1892), wrote of it, — " This form only occurs in one British locality to my know- 

 ledge, viz., at Huddersfield, whence I have received it from Mr. Porritt." I was 

 much surprised on first meeting with this handsome dark variety in South Devon, 

 where one naturally expects unusually light forms, and the more so because all the 

 Dorset and Somerset examples that I have seen have been quite typical. One, how- 

 ever, of a few specimens befoi'e me, taken at Hitchin, Herts, is var. meridionalis , 

 and this form has also been received from Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where Mr. 

 F. Norgate informs me that he has taken it in about equal numbers with the typical 

 one. — Id. 



[My own experience is that meridionalis is the only form of Polia Jlavicincta 

 which occurs on the South Devon coast, as it is at Huddersfield. — G. T. P.] 



Tortrix unifasciana, Bup. : a domestic tragedy .'—On June 30th last, when 

 entering my house at 9.45 p.m., I happened to notice, at rest on the outer part of 

 one of the front doorposts, a specimen of Tortrix unifasciana that appeared, at a 

 casual glance, to have an extraordinarily long abdomen. It was therefore duly 

 boxed, and, on examination, proved to be a female, to which was attached, in copu- 

 lation, the abdomen of a male individual, whose other portions were only con- 

 spicuous by their entire absence, nor could they be found anywhere near. The 

 abdomen of the male had been severed at its junction with the thorax, the severance 

 having been apparently caused, not by any bite, but by some strong pulling force- 

 perhaps a powerful spider or some such foe— and it seems astonishing that any force 

 sufficiently great to wrench the abdomen from the thorax should not have caused 

 the male to part from the female at the natural point of separation instead. The 

 ferns tvas killed and set, and has been kept (with the male abdomen projecting, 

 exac as when found, in a straight line behind her) as a silent witness to a terrible 

 dor ,ic tragedy ! — Id., April 7th, 1906. 



htes on Epiblema sordidana, Eb. : a correction. — I much regret to find that 

 .si ,he final " revise" of my notes on this species, published antea, pp. 101 — 105, left 

 m lands, the date following the address on p. 105 has, by some mistake, been 

 a jd from " 1905 " to " 1906." This has unfortunately affected some of the preceding 



M 2 



