THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 13 



spring their exclusion from tlie egg state. Many-coloured 

 leaves are continually falling, or are wafted by the breeze, 

 and are freighted with more or less limited companies of 

 Aphides, which they convey peacefully to the earth, to 

 mingle there with dust. Their futurity is secured in the egg, 

 and the quiet close of their yearly life differs much from the 

 summer period. They are not now destroyed by outward 

 nor by inward enemies, and are free from the officious over- 

 running of the ants, when the latter remark their growing, but 

 transitory, abundance, and calculate on a proportionate 

 supply of honey. 



3. Aphis-Jioney. — Bees find their honey comparatively 

 prepared for them in flowers, but the honey by the medium 

 of Aphides has various beginnings, and analysis may show 

 whether it has a difference in quality by the difference in its 

 origin. It is extracted from the crevices of old oak trees, 

 from the twigs of young oak trees, from the roots of grass, of 

 sow-thistles and of parsneps, from the nettle and the bramble, 

 from the ivy and the honeysuckle, from the willow and the 

 poplar, from the bog-myrtle and the sea-aster, and its sweet- 

 ness has abundance of other sources. 



Francis Walker. 



Entomological Notes, Captures, 8fc. 



Cause of Slirivelling of Wings of Lepidoptera. — Will some 

 of your correspondents assign a satisfactory reason for the 

 shrivelling of the wings of Lepidoptera ? There are doubtless 

 several causes to which this imperfection can be traced. 

 Amongst others is the scarcity of provisions when the larvae 

 are about to be full fed, which will no doubt lead to this. 

 When the feeding-house contains many larvae of the larger 

 sorts it is really difficult to provide them with sufficient pro- 

 vender; and though you may supply them over-night with 

 what you consider to be " a heavy feed," in the morning 

 when you approach the breeding-cage, to your surprise, you 

 find it contains nothing but sticks and stalks, and hungry 

 animals. It requires an old hand to be able to cater properly 

 for creatures with such enormous appetites, and if the quantity 

 of food is insufficient the result will be shrivelled-winpred 



