234 THE entomoi.ogist's kecoud. 



mimicking respectively the sexually mononiorphic Plamwia telln.^ and 

 P. paraf/ea. 



" Dr. Jordan communicated his discovery to the First International 

 Entomological Congress, meeting at Brussels in 1910." 



He continues with a relation of various confirmatory facts and of 

 efforts to obtain successful breeding experiments, by some of the 

 numerous observers in Africa, who have in the Hope Professor a 

 source of inspiration for their researches and an authority who gives 

 these most of their value, by combining them in support of many 

 valuable conclusions. One of the most remarkable of these is 

 certainly this confirmation of the conclusions pointed to by 

 Dr. Jordan's work. 



Prof. Poultou thus records the result of Dr. Carpenter's first 

 crucial observations. " Dr. Carpenter first succeeded in finding and 

 rearing the larvae of /'. Incretia, and then made many attempts to 

 obtain eggs from captured females of the hobleyi group. Discouraged 

 by many failures, he was beginning to despair when, some weeks past, 

 he observed in the Bugalla forest a female obscura "with a touch of 

 hobleyi" settling in an unusual position on a leaf of the food^plant of 

 Incretia — almost certainly a Sapotaceous plant. The butterfly escaped, 

 but Dr. Carpenter found the egg on the leaf, and hoped to rear the 

 perfect insect before or during the meeting of the Second International 

 Congress at Oxford (August 6th to 10th), and he promised that if the 

 offspring turned out to be ?t')-/-rt or hobleyi, he would cable the result. 

 He wrote that he anticipated terra, because this form is much the 

 commonest in Bugalla. 



Unfortunately the eagerly-expected butterfly did not emerge until 

 after the meeting, but on August 19th I received a cable from Entebbe 

 with the word ' terra.' " 



We may expect further observations and experiments to more 

 completely confirm the position advanced by Dr. Jordan, but it is 

 already on a firm foundation. 



Random Notes on 1912. 



By E. A. COCKAYNE, M.D., F.E.S. 



My first day's collecting this year, February 27th, was at Chingford, 

 where I took a few dark forms of Ilibernia lencojihacaria, a female of 

 //. proyeiinnaria and a fine male of Apocheima hispidaria. Next day, in 

 addition to the first two species, I saw one Al.wphila [Ani.soptery.r) 

 aesciilaria on a hornbeam and three or four lying dead on the surface 

 of a small pond in company with one i'erastis vaccinii, one Taeiii()ca)iipa 

 crnda, and several Jl. leucojihaearia and H. proyeiiniiaria. 11. leiu-o- 

 ))haearia was unusually abundant at the end of the week (March 2nd and 

 3rd), and the days being warm and sunny, the insect fiew readily, giving 

 an exceptionally good opportunity of estimating the relative numbers 

 of the light and dark forms. Many were found on the surface of some 

 small ponds, and the percentage of dark and light forms seen in this 

 way agreed fairly well with that of the captured specimens, and served 

 as a valuable control. 1 examined 290, and estimate the percentage of 

 the different forms as follows: — Light forms 70 per cent., and melanic 

 80 per cent. 



The ab. marmurinaria was found to form three or lour per cent, of 



