1867.] 1 7 
of their food-plant like those of some of tho other " phimes," but eat the young 
leaves first, as yon will see. If you think a notice of this discovery would interest 
your readers, I shall be glad if you will insert it in the Magazine for next month. — 
N. Greening, Warrington, May 2nd, 1867. 
Birds and gooseberry caterpillars. — Mr. Gilbanks is certainly mistaken in sup- 
posing that no birds will eat tho larvae of the gooseberry saw-fly, which is the 
species, I suppose, to which he alludes (vide Vol. iii., p. 280). 
Young cuckoos are veiy fond of them, a fact which my friend the Rev. Harpur 
Crewe can confirm. Chaffinches also feed their young vdth these larvao, and I have 
seen the young birds picking them off the leaves soon after they had left the nest. — 
Henry Doubleday, Epping, 14th Hay, 1867. 
Notes on the larvce of Hydroptila. — On Good Friday I collected from a small 
tributary of the Darenth many cases of Eydroptila, concealed in the crevices of the 
under surface of stones. These contain green larvae, and apparently pertain to 
H. pulchricornis. A miniature aquarium, consisting of a tumbler and plant of 
Callitriche, has enabled me to watch their habits more narrowly ; and I notice a 
peculiarity, not, I think, hitherto observed in Trichopterous larvae. It is well known 
that the larvas of most of the larger species, with portable cases, sink rapidly to the 
bottom when disturbed, but in Hydroptila the larvae remain suspended by a thread 
in mid-water, in the same manner as many Lepidopterous larvae are suspended in 
mid-air ; and by this thread they are enabled to regain their lost position without 
the trouble of commencing de novo at the bottom. The little, flattened, seed-shaped 
cases arc very interesting objects ; but I almost despair of rearing the images, as 
the conditions afforded by the highly aerated bubbling streamlet in which they 
were found, are too different from any with which I have the means of supplying 
them. The cases, while the inmates are yet in the larva state, seem to be com- 
posed entirely of coarse silk, but, before the change, minute sand-granules are 
worked into the outer surface, thus rendering them much fii-mer. — R. McLachlan, 
Forest Hill, Hay, 1867. 
Locality for Cis punctulatus, Oyll. — I am not aware that any British locality has 
yet been published for the above insect, which was brought forward with doubt by 
Mr. G. R. Crotch last year as new to this country. I met with it last July near 
Rannoch, in Perthshire. — T. Blackburn, Grassmeade, Wandsworth. 
Assemblage of Beetles. — Walking along the cliff from Ramsgate to Margate, 
with a strong south-wester blowing, I retired down a gully or " stair" (as they call 
them in the ordnance maps) to smoke a pipe out of the wind. The tide was up, 
and I found myself on a small bay of sand, bounded landwise by perpendicular 
chalk cliffs. The sand to the lower part of the cliffs were covered with thousands 
of beetles evidently blown down from the fields above by the wind. I counted over 
thirty genera, most of them represented by four or five species. The insects were 
mostly on their backs ; and, with the exception of some Bembidia and a small 
Choleva ( anisotomoidesj , they were almost torpid. When put upon their legs they 
made but feeble efforts to get away, and seemed to be unable to get a footing on 
