156 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



was a local term, and in answer to many enquiries I will 

 now endeavour to describe the meaning of the word. A cop is a 

 low embankment used as a fence or boundary, and is generally 

 made of sand or earth, banked at the top and sides with grass 

 or sods, and as a rule is about 4|- feet high, 2 feet wide at the top, 

 and 5 feet wide at the bottom, often being planted with a dwarf 

 willow {Salix fragilis), locally termed " sand-grounders " or 

 " shrew-withins ;" entomologically they make an excellent fence. 

 Compared, however, with the new horrible clothes-tearing por- 

 cupine wire fence, they take up such a large area of land as to 

 amount to a considerable item on a large farm. I am sorry to 

 say that, as they are the best collecting-grounds in this district, 

 they are gradually being demolished, all kinds of herbage growing 

 on them in profusion, and being a convenient height are easy to 

 work at night for larvae, &c. One other slight correction : it was 

 my lamented friend James Hamer, not Harmer, whose name was 

 mentioned as being the discoverer of the earth-pupating habit of 

 C. ligniperda. — R. C. Ivy; Town Hall, Southport, April 21, 1888. 



Nyssia zonaria near Southport. — From the 29th of March 

 until the 21st of April I have taken the above on some old 

 pasture-land at Crossens. They seem to get scarcer in this 

 district every year. In one locality, Anisdale, I searched two 

 afternoons without finding a single specimen, on land where some 

 three years ago they occurred in abundance. The fields not 

 having been ploughed, I assign the reason to the great numbers 

 of plovers having invaded the district of late. These birds seem 

 to have a 'penchant for tit-bits, such as an apterous female zonaria. 

 There were traces of the birds having thoroughly overrun the 

 ground in search of their food. I have never seen Nyssia 

 zonaria on the wing, and have collected scores at all times of the 

 niglit and day. From 7 a.m. until 10 a.m. seems the best time to 

 collect them, when they are usually to be found in copula. Also 

 from 10 p.m. until 12 p.m. is a good time to find the males 

 sticking on the railings, they being then very conspicuous in the 

 light of the lamp. — E. C. Ivy. 



Amphydasis strataria near Windermere. — The late Mr. 

 Newman, in his ' Natural History of British Moths,' p. 61, says 

 that Amphydasis strataria "is not common." I was, therefore, 

 astcmished during the early part of this mouth, at finding a 



