2QQ [November, 



In Tortrix Podana the melanism seems to be limited to the males, some speci- 

 mens being very black, though the majority are still of the usual beautiful chestnut 

 colour ; but the proportion is very different to what it formerly was. 



The cause of tliis change is very obscure. Other usually variable species show 

 no such tendency here. Abraxas grossulariata is most provokingly constant in 

 colour, and black Amphydasis hetularia are here unknown. — Id. 



A new (?) Nepticula larva. — When in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne 

 a short time ago, I was seeking for anything that might turn up. After a while, 

 happening to be looking on the grass, I noticed the mine of a Nepticula which 

 seemed new to me, on a low plant. The plant was Potentilla torment 11 la, and, as I 

 knew we had no species feeding in it, I prostrated myself at the shrine of the goddess 

 at once, and devoted tlie rest of my limited time to her service. With very close, 

 hard searching, I found a few larvse, and now have a few in cocoon. The mine is 

 very neat and clean looking, the larva a very deep clear yellow (much like that of 

 iV^. joo^en'O, and the cocoon small, very pale drab. Mr. Warren tells me that he 

 bred N. (Bneofaseiata last year from a mine on the same plant ; but this certainly is 

 not that species. Mr. Stainton also found a mined leaf in Scotland some years ago, 

 from which he bred an imago, which he cannot refer to any species with which he 

 is acquainted. Should this not be N. torinentiUce, a continental species, it will 

 most likely prove to be new to science. — J. Sang, Darlington : October, 1885. 



Luciola italica at Darlington. — One evening last June, in one of our streets, 

 several persons noticed two lights waving about in the air, which some fancied were 

 lighted fusees being waved by some one. One of those who saw them, however, 

 fancied they were not anything of the kind, and caught one of them in his hand ; 

 the other escaped. It proved to be a beetle, and was brought to me to name. 

 Knowing that it was not either of our two luminous species, I sent it ujo to Mr. 

 C. O. Waterhouse at the British Museum, wlio kindly determined it for me as above. 

 The occurrence of this South European species here is rather remarkable. The 

 light was briUiant, similar in colour to that of the glow-worm {Lampyris noctiluca), ;j 

 but increased and diminished with equal pulsations about every second. — Id. 



Hole on Actidium coarctatum, Hal., and Actinopteryx fucicola, Allib. — I have 

 recently taken these two rare species in great abundance from a heap of decaying 

 seaweed, &.c., upon the cliffs ; it would be difficult to say which was tlie more plen- 

 tiful. From a single handful of shakings I got seventeen specimens of the former 

 species, and forty-three of the latter. As a rule, however, the numbers were much I 

 more equal. — Theodore Wood, Freeman Lodge, St. Peter's, Kent : Ootoher 6th, 1885. 



Pelophila borealis, Payh. : peculiarity of tarsi. — In a series of about five and 

 twenty of this beetle sent to me from Lowry's Lough, Ireland, by the Rev. W. F. 

 Johnson, I found two specimens, both males, which appeared to have lost a great 

 portion of the left hind-tarsus, as it seemed so much shorter than the right hand 

 one ; on examination, however, I found that both tarsi were quite perfect, but that 

 the joints were much contracted, and instead of being very elongate, some of them 

 were almost transverse : the claws were perfect and I could find uo other peculiarity. 



