NOTKS AND OBSERVATIONS. 59 



places where the larva had eaten hi order to penetrate the stem, but 

 in no case had it succeeded in getting inside, and although I pulled 

 whole plants to pieces and dug up the ground near the plants, I 

 never found a single pupa. Where they had pupated was a mystery. 

 It is certain that no mistake was made in the identification of the 

 larvae, which agreed in every detail with those taken from HeraclGum. 

 I see that the same species has been reported as affecting beds of 

 seeding parsnips in nursery gardens in Canada. The advice given 

 was to uproot the affected plants and destroy them. It would be a 

 far better plan to destroy the plants of Ileracleum which are bound 

 to be near by {Heracleum spliondylmm grows in Canada), and to 

 hand-pick the flowers of the parsnips late in June or early in July. 

 Any damage done previous to that could be neglected. That hand- 

 picking is satisfactory in this case I have ample evidence, for when 

 working at the Depressaria some time ago, I took all I could get 

 from one locality, and for two or three years that spot produced 

 none, although they are now as abundant as ever. The attacks of 

 ichneumons on both Depressaria heracliana and its close ally 

 Depressaria nervosa are of no importance. Not one per cent, is 

 parasitised. A far more important enemy is the common earwig 

 which destroys hundreds of pupaB. — J. W. H. Harrison ; 181, 

 Abingdon Eoad, Middlesbrough. 



The Jeffrey and the Baxter Collections. — The collection 

 formed by the late Mr. W. Rickman Jeffrey, of Ashford, and which 

 " came under the hammer" at Stevens's Rooms on December 10th 

 last, although by no means an extensive one, had some claims to 

 antiquity. Few lots, however, appeared to attract any great amount 

 of interest, but among those that received some attention may be 

 mentioned a fine male Ghrysophanus dispar that realized seven 

 guineas, and an equally good female that went for £6 10s.; two pairs 

 of LcBlia ccenosa, which, when put up with a former lot that had 

 failed to find a buyer, brought 32/6; and the lot in which a specimen 

 of Diasemia ramburialis was included ran up to £2 5s. 



The more notable lots in Mr. T. Baxter's collection were a series 

 of forty-one Luperina, described as "nickerlii, gueneei, baxteri, v. iota, 

 V. murrayi, v. minor, v. fusca, all from St. Anne's, 1911, T. Baxter," 

 for which 30/- was given ; a black form of Anthrocera filipendulce. 

 (var. chrysanthemi) reared from a larva found by Mr. Baxter at Fleet- 

 wood in 1888, which realized eleven guineas ; a lot in which fourteen 

 Eupithecia innotata were included which sold for 30/- ; and a couple of 

 rather well-marked varieties of Abraxas grossulariata, which brought 

 26/- and 21/- each respectively. Each of the collections contained 

 four specimens of Cucullia gnaphalii, those in the former in a lot 

 with sundry other species realized 20/-, while those in the latter by 

 themselves brought 18/-. 



In the same sale were included some sixty odd more or less 

 remarkable varieties of Abraxas grossulariata reared during recent 

 years by Mr. Harwood, of Colchester, the result in the majority of 

 cases of selected interbreeding, among which the more important lots 

 were, to quote the catalogue descriptions, among the lacticolor-hitea 

 forms — "a combination of radiata and nigro-venata with broad 



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