92 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



interesting to watch " Daddy Long Leg " females {Tipula oleracca) 

 depositing their eggs at the roots of the short, carpet-like grass. 

 Their bodies, with their ovipositors, were kept vertically bobbing up 

 and down, and the long legs were useful in keeping the wings clear of 

 the grass. 



A few larvae of S. carpini were boxed, and three unknown 

 others, apple-green, with a silvery-white spiracular line, a thinner 

 silvery-white dorsal line, segment divisions white-yellow — altogether 

 very suggestive of the genus Folia. Some nettles which a fortnight 

 ago had feasted swarms of V. io caterpillars were found deserted, but 

 as usual not a chrysalis was to be seen anywhere. 



Descending into the lovely Vale of Llangollen at dusk, and past 

 the Egiwysig Rocks, viz. the ecclesiastical rocks, because belonging to 

 the dismantled Abbey of the Vale of the Cross (Abbey Crucis) hard 

 by — these rocks are famous in the history of A. ashwortJiii as the 

 place of discovery in 1853, by Mr. Joseph Ash worth — we netted 

 Gidaria aversata, including the dark-banded form G. fulvata, 

 Gamptogravima bilineata ; and Hypena prohoscidalis was such a 

 nuisance that darkness was almost welcomed as putting an end to the 

 annoyance. 



On the hills in Denbighshire, where the carboniferous limestone 

 crops out, L. agestis was just appearing on August 10th. Two 

 L. alexis were netted, and numbers of worn E. ianira and G. pam- 

 p)liilus were observed. Anaitis plagiata and E. mensuraria were 

 plentiful among the short furze and heather. A specimen of Hecatera 

 Serena was taken at rest on a stone wall. The usual breakdown in 

 August weather took place on the 12th, and from that date to the end 

 of the month the time at my disposal was chiefly spent in looking for 

 larvae. What I take to be caterpillars of H. serena were common 

 locally near Chester, on flowers of hawk weed and cats' -ear ; and 

 numerous Dicranura vinula, Smerintlius populi, and S. oceUatus were 

 observed on poplars or sallows. Since a great deal of the ground on 

 which the sallows grew is underwater throughout the winter, the pupae 

 of the last-mentioned species must consequently be drowned — another 

 case of instinct versus reason. From the 19th to the 24th, the mean 

 daily maximum temperature in London was only sixty-three degrees — 

 nine degrees short of what is normally due in August. The low 

 general temperature of the month, with frequent rains, sent thousands 

 home from the seaside. 



Autumn opened on September 1st, with a fine, calm, sunny day, 

 but the remainder of the week was one of winter and rain-storms 

 from the north-west. Two degrees of frost were registered near 

 Chester on the 4th, instead of the temperature of last year which 

 approached ninety degrees. Snow fell in North Wales and in Scot- 

 land. The Snowdonian Range was snow-capped, and Ben Nevis was 

 white to a distance below the summit of 2000 feet. Entomology 

 seemed at an end for the season, when, contrary to expectation, the 

 remaining three weeks of the month were, for the British Isles, an 

 Indian summer. But, in a favoured haunt, where there had been 

 scores of L. alexis in 1906, there were only four males and one female 

 observed of the autumn brood. At ten o'clock on the night of the 

 8th, I came upon a small caddis-fly clearing a bud of a Gloire de Dijon 



