NOTES FROM NORTH LANCASHIRE. 303 



Lancaster, was the goal ; for was not Plnsia interrogationis taken 

 there by the score last year, and would not P. interrogationis 

 linger there still ! What though our series were full of the 

 moth — we do not see it fly every day, and we would go and 

 see it ! There were four of us — Messrs. Kershaw and Parker, of 

 Lancaster, with our old friend, Mr. H. Murra}^, of Carnforth, as 

 chief. For the double reason that we meant to ivork all the way 

 and that the ground became more hilly as we walked along, our 

 method of procedure was primitive, and dated before the invention 

 of the wheel. 



On either side of the road were occasional sallows, low birch 

 and foxgloves. The two first did not give us a single caterpillar, 

 but it was seldom we examined a foxglove without finding 

 Eupithecia j^ulchellata inside the blossoms. At last the Pike was 

 reached, and we found it a very different thing to the easy- 

 looking height it appears when seen from Lancaster. The sides 

 are clothed with heather, but seamed by deep ravines — each 

 with its mountain torrent. Huge boulders are strewn about in 

 eccentric positions, and the south-west slope of the mountain is 

 a tumbled heap of rocks which ought to be interesting to the 

 geologist. Although the sun was hot and the day favourable, 

 P. interrogationis did not put in an appearance. From a youthful 

 entomologist we learnt that a few individual specimens had been 

 captured, but the insect had evidently determined to sustain the 

 erratic character of the Plusiida as we saw none. B. quercus 

 was an occasional visitor — our young friend having a fresh 

 female in his possession. But the males were all more or less 

 rubbed and chipped — experienced, in short, and shy ; so the 

 "assembling" was a poor exhibition. Butterflies were only 

 represented l3y a few C. pamjiJiilns, amongst which I netted two 

 yellowish specimens and a black-bordered one. The other heath 

 insects were A. mgrtilli, Agrotis porpliyrca and Larentia ccesiata. 

 But one of the charms of entomology is that the unexpected so 

 often happens, and on this occasion the charm was all on the 

 side of unexpected interest. A commoner moth than L. didijmata 

 could not well be, but here it was in hundreds if not thousands. 

 And a very different insect it was to the dusky representative of 

 the lowlands. With the ground colour of the wings a pearly 

 white, with its spots, bars and zigzag lines almost absent in 

 frequent specimens, or gradually rising to the type in others, it 

 formed an object over which the student in variation might well 

 become enthusiastic. The difficulty would be to devise a name 

 for each particular form. I only wish I had secured a drawerful, 

 but, in our continued search for P. interrogationis, the chance 

 slipped by. 



In the ravines, wooded on each side with low growths of oak 

 and other trees, we came across Ilgpsipetes sordidata {eliitata), 



2b2 



