NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 113 



on June 5th last, were several females, one of which deposited an 

 ovum whilst on the setting board. The larva from this emerged on 

 July 11th. Immediately after emergence I measured it, and found it 

 had a length of 2 mm. ; the head was straw-coloured with a purple 

 blotch, and a few specks of the same colour around the jaws. On 

 each side of the head there was a conspicuous black spot. The head 

 was large. The larva had a rather broad central dorsal and two nar- 

 row subdorsal purple stripes ; the ground-colour of the general area 

 was straw colour. The whole of the larva was thickly covered with 

 inconspicuous spines. I measured it again on July 20th, when it had 

 increased only to 3 mm. in length, after which date I could not find 

 that it fed, and it did not further increase in size by July 28th, on 

 which day it died. I tried the larva with various Arctic grasses, 

 out of which it selected a very fine Aira, which much resembled 

 A. ccespitosa, and which was possibly that species. In feeding, it 

 stretched itself out at full length on a blade of grass, with the 

 head upwards, and commenced to feed at the extreme tip, eating 

 towards the base, and leaving a thin strip of grass uneaten in its 

 progress down the blade. E. emhla is supposed, from the fact that 

 it is only common in alternate years, to take two years to complete 

 its metamorphosis, and the behaviour of my larva seems to lend 

 colour to this view, for as the imago appears at the end of May, 

 there does not seem time for much larval growth in the spring, 

 whereas from the facts that the ova stage appears to last five 

 weeks, and that the young larva took seventeen days to increase 

 one millimetre in length, it seems probable that in a state of 

 nature it hibernates for the first winter quite small, probably in 

 the first stage, attaining its full size the following summer, and 

 passing the second winter as a full-grown larva or as a pupa. — 

 W. G. Sheldon, F.E.S., February 3rd, 1913. 



Hemerophila abruptaria emerging in January. — On January 

 25th a specimen of Hemerophila abruptaria appeared in one of my 

 breeding cages, and on February 8th another came forth. The larvae 

 from which they were reared were hatched out on May 19th of last 

 year, and pupated between the middle of July and the first week in 

 August. Throughout their existence they were kept in an outhouse 

 where, except that they were sheltered from rain, they are well 

 exposed to the weather, and where the pupse have remained through- 

 out the winter. — Egbert Adkin ; Lewisham, February, 1913. 



CoLEOPTERA OF THE BRITISH IsLANDS. — The growing interest taken 

 in the study of our native Coleoptera is exemplified by the fact that 

 almost every month new species are being recorded. Coleopterists 

 will therefore welcome the announcement that the Eev. Canon W. 

 W. Fowler has, in collaboration with Mr. H. St. John Donisthorpe, 

 prepared a sixth and supplementary volume to his standard work 

 ' The Coleoptera of the British Islands.' The last volume of the 

 series was published in 1891, and the present volume brings the 

 work entirely down to date. The Large Paper Edition of the present 

 work (10" X 6f ") contains, in addition to three plates from photographs 

 (which are also included in the smaller edition, 8f"x5^"), no fewer 



