THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 105 



processions across the garden-path : unfortunately, I never 

 counted how many there were in these i^rocessions, but I 

 think I shall be within the mark when I say that they ranged 

 from twenty to one hundred, all marching in admirable order. 

 I have also seen them walking three and four abreast, but not 

 often. I then discovered that their small hairs came off when 

 they were handled, and occasioned me severe irritation, which 

 in the course of a few hours became very painful, producing 

 something like the effects of a stinging-nettle, namely, small 

 white spots on the skin, which continued for about forly-eight 

 hours afterwards. In addition to C. pityocampa I found one 

 specimen of another larva, which also possessed this irritating 

 power: it is about two and a half inches long, of a mahogany 

 colour, sprinkled rather sparingly with grayish blue fine hairs 

 all along the back; on the 3rd and 4th segments it has 

 crests of deep blue hairs, longer than the others, extending 

 on either side almost to the spiracles; partly on the 8th and 

 partly on the 9lh segments it has the figure of a minute 

 butterfly of the swallow-tail type, also of grayish blue, and 

 measuring a quarter of an inch across; it has legs on the 2nd, 

 3rd and 4th segments, and claspers on the 7th, 8th, 9lh, 10th 

 and last segments. After preserving this larva my wrists and 

 round the lower part of my eyes were covered with minute 

 blisters, which caused me great irritation ; 1 took the precau- 

 tion to wear gloves, so that my hands did not suffer. — H. 

 Wit tick; 6, Lansdown Cottages, Dalsio/i, April 20, 1874. 



T/te Colorado Potato Bug. — Panic is a cherished " Insti- 

 tution" among us dauntless Britons, — "Hearts of Oak," as 

 we call ourselves. This bugbear takes a variety of forms : 

 sometimes it is a Napoleon, then a ghost, then, presto! it is 

 a comet, anon an invisible fungus, Peronospora infestans ; 

 then a second Napoleon, then a bottle-nosed whale, then a 

 coal famine, and now a potato bug. A few, a very few, in- 

 cline to investigate: they exclaim, " We must look into this 

 matter;" but their "lookings into" are confined to the penny- 

 a-lining columns of the 'Telegraph' and 'Times,' and the 

 penny-a-liners adopt a florid and fluent, but vague, style, in 

 order to extend the panic: if they succeed in getting up a 

 deputation to a President of the Board of Trade, or to a 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, so nuich tlie better; it hurts 

 no one, and brings grist to their mill. Under great pressure, 



P 



