33 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



following spring. ... In October, 1863, we found Notodonta 

 ziczac, N. dictcea, and one larva of anachoreta, which we did not 

 keep as we had bred them in plenty. During that month we 

 turned out eighty-four nearly full-fed larvas of anachoreta, but 

 not all bred from the same parents, in different places among 

 these plantations. We put the larvae on the same species of 

 poplar we had first found them on, in order thoroughly to estab- 

 lish the species there ; but since that date we have neither of us 

 seen the larva of anachoreta there, although we have been at 

 Folkestone every autumn up to the present time, . . . not having 

 seen an anachoreta larva for eleven years, I was deceived in the 

 spring of 1874, by finding some young larvae in these plantations, 

 which proved to be those of S. salicis." — T. H. Briggs, May 

 14th, 1881. (The italics are mine). 



From the above it will readily be seen that, even in its birth- 

 place, the insect steadily diminished in numbers, until in 1864 it 

 disappeared altogether, though eighty-four full-grown larvae had 

 been distributed in the locality ; and tliough carefully sought for 

 eight successive autumns, not a single specimen was taken. It is 

 further to be observed that the one larva taken by Mr. Side- 

 botham, and that by Mr. Meek, were both captured at the 

 oo'igi7ial locality and prior to 1864. 



In the other reply Mr. S. Norman refers me to Entom. 

 vol. ix. 232. Mr. Norman states there that he found a pupa, but 

 did not know what it was, until it emerged the following May ; and 

 in his more recent communication adds, that he found it under 

 loose bark on 2villotv. This seems strange, as every record gives 

 poplar as the food of anachoreta. Is Mr. Norman quite sure 

 that he did not mistake Clostera curtula for anachoreta ? Until 

 this be clearly ascertained I cannot attach much value to this 

 communication. Since I wrote in 1881 I have again carefully 

 examined the pages of the ' Zoologist,' ' Entomologist,' and the 

 ' Ent. Mo. Mag.,' with the result that (putting aside Mr. Norman's 

 statement as doubtful, and the announcement of a single larva 

 having been bred in confinement) no mention of the capture of 

 anachoreta in a7iy stage has been recorded since 1864, a period of 

 twenty-three years. 



I said, in the commencement of this paper, that I did not 

 believe anachoreta to be an indigenous British insect years ago. 

 Still less do I believe it to be so now. All who had the oppor- 



