18 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



your collection as most like the one I took in Ireland, named 

 Compta; but, as I said before, I do not know Compta so well 

 as to distinguish the difference, so I took Mr. Meek's word for 

 it: it was the latter end of July when I took it." But he says 

 nothing of having seen Mr. Meek take one. How logical 

 Mr. Meek is, when he says he spent night after night looking 

 for one species and did not take another species, I need not 

 comment upon, merely observing D. Ca3sia var. Manani 

 appears as a fleeting blue speck, gliding more like a Sphinx 

 from flower to flower, and frequenting those Silene plants 

 which grow nearest to high-water mark on the coast, whilst 

 D. Barrettii appears as a spinning dark Plusia Gamma-like 

 flying moth, and frequents those plants of Silene and honey- 

 suckle which grow at a considerable elevation up the banks 

 and grassy slopes. And last, I do not remember telling any- 

 body " Sesia Philanthiformis was common at Howth."* I 

 did not want that species when I was there, else I should 

 have gone more on the southern end of Howth, amongst the 

 almost inaccessible cliffs, not on grassy banks, where 

 D. Barrettii is most abundant, and where there is only 

 one small patch of rock which could supply the peculiarly 

 stunted plants of sea-pink within range of the splash of the 

 tidal spray, which this species seems to affect most. Even at 

 Onchan, Isle of Man, Mr. Meek might have noticed that he 

 only found the pupa of Philanthiformis within a zone of a few 

 feet wide, and in June, not July, and that zone within a few feet 

 of high-water mark; at any rate, I directed him so to search 

 for it there. I am quite aware one person may take a species 

 and others fail to find it, but there are species I should not 

 expect to find under certain circumstances, for example, — 

 Mr. Meek wrote me several letters (now before me) from the 

 "Manx Arms," Onchan, Isle of Man, in June, 1871, asking 

 me to come and show him how to find the larvae of Polia 

 nigrocincta, he having failed to find it in its very best time 

 (first two weeks in June), and said he had taken a new 

 Bombyx. When I got there Mr. Warrington had sold him 



* [Possibly the following is the passage to which Mr. Meek referred : — 

 " Additions to Mr. Birchall's List of the Lepidoptera of Ireland. — Sesia 

 Philanthiformis freely on the coast of Howth, from the baths to the Round 

 Tower in Dublin Bay, where the sea-pink [Statice Arineria) grows upon the 

 rocks. June and July. — C. S. Gregson; Stanley, Liverpool." 'Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine,' vol. iv. p. 70. — Edward Netoman.^ 



