﻿228 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The 7th was bright and warm. Several larvfe of Leucania 

 favicolor had fed up rapidly, and were now full grown, and one 

 spinning up ; the remainder were still small, evidently intending 

 to hybernate. It is strange how scarce the Vanessids were this 

 season, notwithstanding the long spell of hot weather, and in 

 the lucerne fields, bright with flowers, I did not see one. There 

 were very few hybernated urticce about in the spring, and no io, 

 but I had seen one or two of the latter lately indoors, as if they 

 were looking for some dark corner wherein to hibernate, though 

 it seemed early for that. I had not seen Pyrameis atalanta or 

 P. cardiii yet. Lyccena icarus were in great profusion among 

 the lucerne. 



The 10th was fine and bright in the forenoon and very hot, 

 with a fresh north-easterly breeze, but became overcast after noon. 

 I went to the woods in the evening for sugaring. Common species 

 were abundant. I took or saw Acronycta rumicis, one (? second 

 brood) ; Apamea oculea and Triphcena pronuba, abundant ; 

 T. ianthina, Noctiia baja, N. c-nigrum, Amphipyra pyramidea, 

 many of each ; Catocala nupta, eight ; Noctua stigmatica, three ; 

 N. umbrosa, one ; N. xanthographa, one ; M. brassic(B, three 

 (? second brood) ; Dipterygia scabriuscula, one, fresh (? second 

 brood) ; Cidaria truncata, one ; and netted Epione apiciaria, one 

 female ; Timandra amataria was still abundant. On the 12th 

 I visited the woods again. Moths were plentiful on the sugar ; 

 the same species as on night of 10th, with the addition of a few 

 fresh G. libatrix. The weather for the past week was excessively 

 warm. On the 9th the temperature recorded in the shade at 

 Greenwich Observatory was 100°, the highest recorded since the 

 Observatory was started nearly three hundred years ago ! 



Some ova laid by a female T. amataria captured early last 

 month hatched in due course, and a few of the larvae fed up 

 rapidly, and on the 15th I saw that three of them had spun up 

 on the mushn hood of the breeding-cage, and had changed to 

 pupae ; most of the others were still small. 



16th. — About ten days earlier I had caught a female Chryso- 

 phanus phlceas, and placed her out in the sun in a muslin- covered 

 fiower-pot with a growing plant of Rumex acetosella ; she soon 

 laid a number of eggs on the leaves and stems, and some of 

 these were already hatched on the 16th, and the tiny larvae 

 had buried themselves in a groove they had eaten in the leaves. 

 It was a very hot day. At dusk I went to the lanes and marshes, 

 sugaring the posts and twigs ; moths were abundant, the best 

 being Cerigo matura, T. interjecta, H. paludis, and a second 

 brood of L. pallens and A. exclamationis, these latter being 

 remarkably small. 



The 18th was fine and very hot — 82° in the shade. I took a 

 fresh specimen of Eupithecia pumilata; this must have been a 

 third brood. 



