1880], 125 



Now back to the "Anchor," walk on to the locality for sulphuralis and 

 the rest, fill our remaining unfilled boxes, and home on the break to 

 Bury St. Edmunds, well contented with our day. 



It is the end of June, and another expedition is organized. Hy- 

 drelia unca is still on the wing in the fen, but Agrophila sulphuralis is 

 getting ragged on the sand, and we find little but Acidalia rubrieata 

 to reward us. But, stay ! as we return somewhat disappointed, we 

 institute a search on the flowers of Echium vulgare and Centaurea 

 scabiosa. On the former a beautiful specimen of Diantlicecia irregularis 

 is found, and another moth, unknown to its captor, is brought me to 

 be named. It is Dicycla oo, an insect which I had supposed to be a 

 New Forest moth, and not an inhabitant of so open a country. 



It is now July, and my pupils are gone home for their holidays, 

 so I have to make my excursions by myself with one or two friends. 

 There is nothing to speak of in the sandy district except Spilodes 

 sticticalis, which is frequently very abundant, and sometimes very 

 finely coloured. However, a friend takes a specimen of Lytta vesica- 

 toria, and two or three Cerambycidce are? captured as they fly, to the 

 satisfaction of the Coleopterists ; but on the marsh and fen, towards 

 5 o'clock in the afternoon, out comes Hyria auroraria in fair number 

 and excellent condition, and a very beautiful little insect it is in its 

 purple and gold livery. But let me not forget to carry on the search 

 for the caterpillars of Macroglossa bomhjliformis. I look for leaves of 

 the blue scabious with holes bitten in them, and am several times dis- 

 appointed as I turn them up, for other things bite holes in them 

 occasionally besides the expected caterpillar. But patience and per- 

 severance ! Another and another plant is visited till I come to a 

 region where there has evidently been a considerable deposit of eggs, 

 and plant after plant yields a bright green larva with red markings on 

 the sides, on the under-side of one of its leaves, and I return with 

 nineteen caterpillars of M. bombyliformis in my boxes. Those of Li- 

 thostege grisearia, too, swarm on the Flixweed, but are hardly worth 

 rearing, so inferior are the bred specimens to those that are taken in 

 their wild state. 



With August comes the time for sweeping, and the abundant 

 Silene otites yields its store of the caterpillars of Dianthcecia irregularis, 

 with an occasional larva of Heliothis dipsacea. But the latter larva 

 and that of Heliothis marginata abound more on the banks which 

 edge the road through the open fields from Higham to Tuddenham. 

 The imagos of Eremobia ochroleuca and Agrotis valligera are found on 

 the Centaurea scabiosa. 



