NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 273 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 

 To OUR Subscribers. — The ' Entomologist ' started its 1918 

 career with a 31h per cent, rise in the cost of printing, etc. In 

 June of that year the increase rose to 55 per cent., and in October 

 mounted to 100 per cent. The result of these heavy additions to 

 the cost of production has been that, on a subscription of seven 

 shillings per annum, the receipts and cost- balance unfavourably for 

 the year. As the cost of our 1919 volume will be at least double 

 that of 1914 we are reluctantly obliged to advance the subscription 

 to twelve shillings. It may be noted here that the ' Entomologist ' 

 has for many years been conducted not as a profit-earning publication 

 but as a self-supporting journal. Any surplus of receipts over 

 expenses there may have been in one year has been expended in 

 additional pages or extra illustrations in the next volume. We may 

 add that without the financial assistance of some of our supporters 

 the Special Index for 1916 and also that of 1917 could not have 

 been printed. 



Eetarded Emergence of Eustroma (Cidaria) silaceata.^ — In 

 July last I bred a number of E. silaceata and imagined that all the 

 moths had emerged. I was therefore surprised to find an imago 

 freshly emerged on October 22nd, and another on November 3rd. 

 This is not a case of a second brood, as I did not continue the 

 strain. — (Eev.) J. E. Tarbat ; Fareham, Hants. 



Peronia cristana in the New Forest in 1918. — I spent a 

 fortnight, September 12th to 26th, in the New Forest, chiefly in 

 hunting for P. cristana. I was not at all sanguine of a good bag, 

 for three visits to Epping Forest had only resulted in seventeen 

 examples, and generally speaking I had found the Peroiieac exceedingly 

 scarce in Surrey ; probably the cold snap that spoilt the fruit crop, 

 and which occurred whilst they would be in the larva stage, was 

 accountable for the scarcity of this group. I was accordingly 

 agreeably surprised to see P. cristana in its Hampshire locality by 

 far more abundant than it has been my fortune to find it in previous 

 years. On a good day five or six dozen examples could be netted, 

 and these numbers represent more than double those that it has 

 been my lot to discover in previous years ; and, moreover, there were 

 far less of the prevalent melanic form, ab. nigrana, than is usually 

 the case. Altogether, I suppose I must have examined five or six 

 hundred examples, the majority of which were, of course, released. 

 Unquestionably the best form obtained was the true ab. ruficostana, 

 with the yellow vitta as figured by Curtis. This is an exceedingly 

 rare form, of which one only sees one or two examples in the best 

 collections. I also obtained three of the beautiful and rare form, 

 ab. nigrocostana, Clark, one ab. subcajmcina, two ab. sepiana, several 

 abs. fidvocristana, provittana, insulana, flavimeana, nigrosubvittana, 

 alboruficostana, semistriana, jansoniana, fulvovittana, subcristelana, 

 subchantana, all of which I have in previous years found to be rare ; 

 quite a feature of the varieties was the number of abs. albiininctana 

 and ochreaimnctana that occurred. — W. G. Sheldon ; October 29th, 

 1918. 



