NOTES ON NEW AND RARE BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 79 



tinned to utter until boxed, reminding one of Dickens' story 

 of the child who, having swallowed a necklace, was ad- 

 mitted to the hospital, where it made a noise like a young 

 rattlesnake, until at last it became such a nuisance to the 

 other patients that it had to be muffled in the watchman's 

 gi-eat coat. Of course we have all heard of the celebrated 

 spider that screamed so successfully as to freeze somebody's 

 blood, and we know that Death's-heads do squeak — but 

 2)rat>mana ! surely it must have been a bat. 



NEW BRITISH SPECIES IN 1870. 



FuMEA RETiCELLA, Newman, $ . 

 The female of Fumea reticella with its case has at length 

 been discovered by Mr. D. T. Button near Gravesend. 

 These females and their cases resemble those of Fumea pulla 

 and cr^assiorella, but are larger, and there is no down towards 

 the anal extremity of the female. Mr. Bond, my kind in- 

 formant, tells me that the bodies of the females in his pos- 

 session are now all black, but that they were probably not so 

 when alive. 



Plusia verticillata, Guenee. 



P. verticillata, Gn. 344 ; acuta, Wlk. var. 



A single apparition of this novel Plusia is recorded in 

 the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, vol. vii., p. 138, 

 by Mr. Moore, as having been taken by Mr. H. P. Robin- 

 son of Timbridge Wells. The moth, attracted, no doubt, 

 by light, flew in at his drawing-room window in May last. 



Mr. Robinson's insect agrees in the minutest detail with 

 Plusia acuta, Wlk. (hitherto represented by a single speci- 



