42 [J"^y' 



Variety of Melanippe Jliictuata. — While looking round for Biston hirtaria in 

 London this spring, my eldest boy picked up a very interesting aberration of this 

 species. The usually dark central fascia of its fore-wings is white, with tlie con- 

 tained central spot black, and the usually whitish broad spaces before and after the 

 fascia are of a dark smoky-grey, thus showing a striking inversion of the natural 

 colouring. — Chas. Gt. Barrett, London : May Wih, 1885. 



Eudorea angustea locally douhle-hrooded . — -This species, the latest of the group 

 to appear in the autumn, is said to hibernate, on the ground, I suppose, of the occa- 

 sional occurrence of specimens in the spring. Lust May, at Plymouth, when searching 

 on the old walls round the harbour and on Drake's Island for larvse of Bryophila 

 glandifera, I found several larvae of this species full fed, and also pupse. From these 

 the moths emerged after a few days. It, therefore, seems that this species produces 

 a spring brood on the south coast when the winters are so mild as to allow the larva 

 to feed through them, and this habit probably obtains, to some extent, throughout 

 the south of England. I cannot remember, however, that I ever saw a spring spe- 

 cimen at Pembroke, where the moth was abundant in the late autumn. — Id. 



Glyphipteryx octilatella hred. — The imago of this species abounds in some 

 woods in this neighbourhood, but so locally as to have given me a strong hope of 

 finding its larva. This hope was fulfilled last September, when, after a hunt in the 

 tops of several Juncece and Glumacece, the larvae were found commonly in the spike- 

 lets of Carex milpina, there being often two or three in a spike. They also feed on 

 the fruits of smaller Carices, but, owing to the herbage having been much entangled 

 and beaten down by the rain, I could only find one spike of the latter infested, and 

 this I destroyed in examining it. My larvse remained unchanged until April, and 

 the imagines came out freely during May. — W. H. B. Fletcher, Fairlawn, 

 Worthing : June 1st, 1885. 



The Entonioloyy of TurJcistan.—T\ie Eev. Henry Lansdell, D.D., F.E.Gr.S.,&c., 

 has recently published two bulky volumes of experiences of travel in " Eussian 

 Central Asia, including Kuldja, Bokhara, Khiva, and Merv " (London : Sampson, 

 Low, & Co., 1885), of extreme interest generally, and, at the present time specially, 

 viewed in connection with the rather uncertain political conditions. They will be 

 of lasting interest scientifically, because the author, in a very extensive appendix to 

 the second volume, has gone to the trouble of having translated all the introductory 

 remai'ks, and of adding the lists of species, in the very numerous already published 

 parts on the Botany and Zoology of Turkistan in Fedchenko's great work on the 

 subject. As this latter work is wholly in the Eussian language (excepting the Latin 

 diagnoses of new species), it has remained very much as a sealed book to the vast 

 majority of students ; therefore, we cordially welcome this opportunity of being 

 able to read the generalizations of the various authors, and of recognising the enter- 

 prise of Dr. Lansdell, who, by going out of his way to add what some may think a 

 dry appendix to a book of travel, has contrived to give the general scientific public 

 an insight into the natural productions of the country, and to show (so far as he is 

 able) the amount of work done by the enterprising traveller Fedchenko, and his 

 devoted wife who accompanied him, and who since his premature death on the 

 European Alps, has continued to edit the sei'ics of memoirs commenced under his 

 auspices. — Eds. 



