108 LEPIDOPTERA. 



Next to the weatlier some papers of exceptional merit re- 

 quire special recognition. Dr. Jordan's paper on the origin 

 of British Lepidoptera gives us an idea as to how it was 

 we ever got any Lepidopterous Fauna at all. Mr. Barrett, 

 assisted by Mr. Buckler, has made clear a good deal more 

 than we were previously acquainted with concerning the 

 economy of certain Pterophoridcu. And whilst the great 

 American Entomologist, Mr. Scudder of Boston, U.S.A., has 

 sent us a ray of light across the broad Atlantic on the em- 

 bryonic larv83 of butterflies, our own Mr. Hellins has from 

 time to time been adding to our store of knowledge, respect- 

 ing the egg state, facts which ought to stimulate us to an 

 attentive study of these v/onderful objects. Then a curious 

 discussion (accompanied by practical experiments) upon the 

 manufacture of varieties by means of anyline dyes fixed by 

 carbonate of soda, and also by other means, has engrossed 

 the attention of some of the members of the Entomological 

 Society ; and, thanks to my remark in last year's Annual, 

 HylopMla prasinana has "made a noise" at last. And when 

 we take into consideration that not only has a new automaton 

 moth-trap been invented, but that our British flies are actu- 

 ally taking to the Yankee notion^ everybody must admit that 

 progress has been made. 



On reckoning up the captures of rarities the sum total 

 is a very respectable one ; the scarcer butterflies have all 

 shown up — Antiopa at Sevenoaks and near Norwich ; La- 

 tona at Ipswich; 'Dap)lidice at Folkestone, Sandgate, St. 

 Margaret's and Brighton, and Acis in South Wales. Of 

 SpJiinges the most important capture of the season has been 

 that of Deilephila euphoi^bice, which was re-discovered last 

 August by Mr. Walter P. Weston at rest in a private garden 

 near Southampton 5 as for D. galii and S. convolvuU, a few 



