NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 15 



situation, I should say, as far as my experience goes, that it is nearly its 

 only situation. The whole of my series of some ten specimens are all 

 labelled "Deal coast"; and although I have had a number of specimens 

 sent me from inland localities, I have never had any hesitation in rejecting 

 them as complana, and putting them in my series of lurideola {com- 

 phnnhi). I have seen complana (female) drying its wings within twenty 

 yards of the sea, and probably one to two miles distant from any trees, and 

 certainly in this case complana did not feed on tree lichens, although it may 

 have done so on rock lichens. I feel pretty well satisfied that pygmceola is 

 not a lichen feeder, although I have hitherto failed to breed it. In the 

 ' Entomologist,' x. 46, 47, is an interesting account of the life-history 

 of L. molybdeola, and there the Rev. P. H. Jennings gives lichens, 

 chickweed, lettuce, dandelion and sallow as food-planls for this species. I 

 think our Lithosida are much more general feeders than they are usually 

 considered to be. — J. W. Tutt ; Rayleigh Villa, Westcombe Park, Black- 

 heath, S.E. 



Mklanic variety of Agrotis cortigea. — In the * Entomologist' (xxi. 

 p. 285) is a statement that "Mr. Goss exhibited, for Mr. W. J. Cross, an 

 extraordinary melanic variety of Agrotis segetum, caught by the latter 

 gentleman near Ely, in July last." Mr. Cross, dissatisfied with the result 

 arrived at in the meeting, sent the specimen on to me. There is not the 

 slightest doubt that the specimen is Agrotis corticea, not A. segetum, and 

 although the variety is perhaps, in a small degree, "extraordinary," I have 

 repeatedly captured specimens of the same form, with a large number of 

 other varieties of the same species, at Deal, during the month of July in 

 the years 1884-88.— J. W. Tutt. 



Agrotis agathina. — On Sept. 3rd I took a fine specimen of Agrotis 

 agatJuna at sugar. As I have never taken it before, and as several of my 

 correspondents have never known it taken in that way, I should like to 

 know how it is usually taken. — W. E. Butler; 91, Chatham Street, 

 Reading. [By searching the flowers of heather-bloom with a light at 

 night. They prefer bloom sheltered by tress. — J. T. C] 



Calocampa solidaginis. — We take this species in the same manner 

 as that mentioned by the Rev. C. Thornewill (Entom. xxi. 277), and it 

 also comes freely to sugar. I met with it in the latter way for the first 

 time this season on August 25th. In the locality where C. solidaginis is 

 most frequently met with, there are only three birch trees, the moths either 

 resting on bracken branches, heather stems, or on some palings there, 

 which are about a foot from the ground, and rarely on the trunks of the 

 birches. — A. E. Hall; Norbury, Sheffield, November, 1888. 



Xylophasia iionoglypha var. — While sugaring here on July 10th I 

 took a fine darkvariety of A'^/o^j/irtsm vionoghjpha; as far aslcan see, the same 

 as the second figure in Newman's ' Natural History of British Moths.' I 

 have not known this variety to occur in this locality before, though I have 

 collected here for three years or more, and seen many hundreds of the 

 type. — Spotswood Graves; 29, Victoria Street, Tenby, July 25, 1888. 



Vrnilia macularia var. — During a short visit to Lynmouth, North 

 Devon, in July last, I took a specimen of Venilia macularia, of the variety 



