46 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



PLUSIA ILLUSTFJS IN IRELAND. 

 By G, Herbert Carpenter. 



Among a number of moths taken by Miss Alice Hull, near 

 Castle Kevin, in County Wicklow, in August, 1887, and lately 

 given by her to me for identification, I was greatly surprised to 

 find a specimen of Plusia illiistris. 



The moth is figured in Cuitis's * British Entomology ' (vol. 

 xvi., p. 731), published in 1839, and is there recorded as having 

 been taken on Salisbury Plain and in South Wales. Mr. H. T. 

 Stainton has most courteousl}'' informed me that these captures 

 took place before 1810, and that the insect has never since been 

 seen in Britain. Both he and Mr. de V. Kane agree that it is 

 quite new to Ireland. 



The insect is admitted by Humphreys and Westwood into 

 their ' British Moths ' (1843). It is to be found among the reputed 

 British species in the Doubleday List, but in Mr. R. South's 

 List it is refused a place even among these. Its re-appearance in 

 our islands, after so many years, is therefore a noteworthy fact. 

 It seems very strange that, if Miss Hull's specimen is a migrant 

 from the Continent, no individuals have been taken in Great 

 Britain. On the other hand, it is equally strange if the insect 

 has been breeding among us unnoticed for over seventy years. 

 The ordinary food-plants of the caterpillai*, Thalictrum aquilegi- 

 folium and Aconitiim lycoctonum, are both confined to the 

 Continent. T. minus, however, occurs sparingly on the Wicklow 

 coast, and species of both genera may very possibly be cultivated 

 in the locality. 



Science and Art Museum, Dublin, January 14, 1889. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES, CAPTURES, &c. 



Vanessa anteopa in Ki£Nt. — About the middle of September, 1888, 

 a worn specimen of Vanessa antlopa was captured by a gentleman with his 

 hat, wliile it was at rest on a gooseberry bush in his garden near this place. 

 — John Tyrer; ii7, Jeffry Street, New Brompton, Kent. 



Diminutive Polyommatus. — On September 13th I took at Sandy, in 

 Bedfordshire, a very small specimen of Pohjommatus phheas. The insect 

 does not measure more than ten and a half lines across the wings. — Henry 

 A. Hill ; 20, Fellows Road, Hampstead, N.W., November 4, 1888. 



Absence of Lyc^enid^. — In Mr. Adkin's article upon the influence of 

 meteorological conditions upon insect life (Entom. 7) reference is made 

 to the absence of a second brood, in 1888, of Lycmna hellargus. During 

 the past fifty summers in which I have collected, on and off, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Chatham, I have never, until last autumn (1888), missed 



