66 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Midsummer Day (June 24th). In the last forty years the highest 

 temperature has not reached sixty degrees on five occasions — in the 

 years 1871, 1877, 1885, 1894 and 1901. The lowest maximum 

 temperature recorded on Midsummer Day in these years is fifty-five 

 degrees, in 1885. The reading for Midsummer Day, 1907, was fifty- 

 three degrees ! The maximum recorded is seventy-eight, in 1887. 

 Altogether, the June of 1907 fully deserved the character of " a 

 doleful June." The skies were generally clouded, and the weather 

 cold and wet. Snow fell in Scotland, in Westmorland, and North 

 Yorkshire on the 25th. The climatic conditions were probably 

 unique to the present generation. 



Macaria liturata — quite fifty per cent, of which were the variety 

 nigro-fulvata (Collins) — began to emerge on the 11th from Delamere 

 Forest larvae ; and Agrotis ashioorthii, from Denbighshire larvae col- 

 lected in April, came out well from June 28th to July 18th. The 

 month (June) ended with a thunderstorm. 



Aplecta nebulosa, reared from Delamere Forest caterpillars, 

 appeared during the latter part of June and beginning of July. The 

 percentage of the variety robsoni ranged from four to eight, but we 

 failed to get thompsoni. Both these forms are faithfully figured in 

 " The Moths of the British Isles," p. 241, with the aid of photography 

 and colour printing — robsoni with its grey fringes, and thompsoni 

 with its white fringes. 



With the exception of the 5th and 12th, July ran on to the 14th 

 before we had a week of warmth. The chilly w^eather extended from 

 the British Isles to the Azores. The coldest places on the 2nd were 

 Belfast, Clacton and Nottingham, which all shivered in a temperature 

 of forty-one degrees. It was colder in London than in the middle of 

 November, 1906, when the thermometer rose comfortably to sixty-one 

 degrees. Snow fell at Zermatt and was lying upon the hills within 

 a few" feet of newly cut hay ! 



On the 16th the electric lamps became worth working. The 

 following is a list for that date — all taken about midnight, or after, 

 and resting on the walls or pavement within a dozen yards of the 

 lamps : — Notodonta dictcea (including the first female I ever took at the 

 lamps and she obliged me with two hundred and fifty white eggs which 

 began hatching on the 24th), S. lubi'icipiedaiinA S. 7uenthastri, Miana 

 strigilis (all dark), Garadrina morpheus, G. cubicidaris, A. exclama- 

 tionis, Xylophasia polyodon, Habrostola tripilasia, Plusia iota, 

 Uropteryx sambucaria, Aviphidasys betularia var. doubledayaria, 

 Bumia cratagata, Boarmia rhomboidaria and Paraponyx stratiotalis. 

 On the 17th this list was varied by the appearance of TV". dictcBoides, 

 Herminia derivalis and a black X. p)olyodon. On July 18th further 

 additions were x4. caia, Phalera bucephala, P. festuccB ixnd Phorodesma 

 bajularia. — J. Arkle ; Chester. 



(To be continued.) 



