NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 187 



The Tkophonius Form of Papilio cenea. — From notes by Roland 

 Trimen, F.R.S., &c., and G. A. K. Marshall, F.E.S. and myself, in my 

 paper on P. cenea, Trans. Ent. Soc. of London, December, 1904, page 

 687, I fancy the proportion of the above form of the female has been 

 underestimated, and I think a report of the captures, &c., of this form 

 during the end of April and up to the 18th of May may be of suffi- 

 cient interest to record. I have been taking careful observation 

 myself, and also asked the following collectors to let me know of their 

 captures of this rare form, and they are as follows : — April 27th, saw 

 one at Umbilo, near Durban, G. F. Leigh. May 5th and 13th, 

 captured one at Durban, G. F. Leigh. May 18th, saw one in the 

 town, Smith Street, Durban, G. F. Leigh. May 5th, captured three, 

 Overport, Durban, A. H. Clarke. May 8rd or 4th, seen by Mr. A. D. 

 Millar, in Ridge Road, Durban. May 3rd, captured on the Bluff, 

 Durban, Mr. Green. May 1st, captured by Mr. Berensberg, Durban. 

 This is all I have heard of, but no doubt other collectors, not known 

 to me, have also taken specimens. It seems to me that this is a very 

 unusual number to be accounted for in about a month, but probably 

 my asking these gentlemen to let me know how many they took 

 caused them to be more keen in hunting up this insect. It might 

 easily be mistaken on the wing, no doubt, for Danais chrysippus, unless 

 a careful look-out was kept. I have seen several of the specimens 

 mentioned and only two of them were varieties. Both were slightly 

 damaged, the one taken by Mr. Berensberg, and the one taken by 

 myself on May 13th ; both have brown markings in the white spots at 

 the tip of the fore wings. The specimen seen by me to-day in one of 

 the busy streets in town must have flown out from the Albert Park, 

 where this species is fairly common at certain times of the year. — 

 G. F. Leigh ; Durban, Natal, May 18th, 1907. 



On the Discovery of the Food-plant of Aciptilia (Buckleria) 

 PALUDUM, Zell. — Few entomological problems have resulted more satis- 

 factorily than the finding out of the food-plant of this pretty little 

 moth. It has been a problem of much interest to myself, having 

 'worked at it for many years, though its solution is entiiiy due to Mr. 

 Eustace Bankes, who fortunately obtained the practical skill of Dr. 

 T. A. Chapman in finally working out the full proof of the problem's 

 solution. Aciptilia palmUim had, by the year 1886, become practically 

 a lost British insect, when it was found in fair abundance by myself 

 and my sons in a small bog on Bloxworth Heath.* The moth 

 occurred here regularly every succeeding season, as well as, less 

 abundantly, later on in the Isle of Purbeck, where it was met with by 

 the Rev. C. Digby and by Mr. Eustace Bankes. Of course our 

 ambition now was to find out its food-plant and manner of life. We 

 gradually exhausted the list of plants growing where the insect 

 appeared ; all our efforts, however, to guess, or to pitch upon, the 

 right plant, whether by accident or design, failed for nearly twenty 

 years. There remained, however, one plant — the sundew {Drosera) — 

 whose likelihood to be the true one certainly never crossed our minds ; 



* See ' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field 

 Club,' vol. viii, p. -57, PI. ii. fig. 4, 1887. 



