NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 66 

 POLIA XANTHOMISTA, Hb. = NIGROCINCTA, Tr., IN CORNWALL. 



I have previously recorded in the ' Entomologist ' (vol. xxxix. p. 292, 

 and vol. xli. p. 273) captures of this insect, and have now to record in 

 addition the breeding of same from wild ova obtained in 1908. Larvae 

 hatched out during April and May of this year, and were fed indoors, 

 until after second moult, on buds and young leaves of a common 

 plum-tree, after which they were sleeved outdoors in my garden on 

 the plum-tree from which the early buds, &c., were obtained. At the 

 bottom of sleeve I placed a good quantity of moss, in which the larvae 

 could hide by day and be sheltered from the hot sun, rains, &c. 

 During August I opened the sleeve and found a number of cocoons 

 among the moss from which emerged half a dozen fine insects, two 

 males and four females, between August 31st and September 12th 

 last, all being of the average size of the wild insects I have taken. — 

 W. A. Eollason; "Lamorna," Truro, Cornwall, December 13th, 

 1909. 



Late Emergence of Plusia gamma. — About the middle of 

 November Mr. F. E. Beddard, P.E.S., Prosector to the Zoological 

 Society, informed me that he had noticed a perfectly fresh and 

 apparently newly emerged specimen of the above moth on the outer 

 wall of the deadhouse in the Society's Gardens in Eegent's Park. 

 Beyond noting the fact that the period of emergence appeared to be 

 abnormally late no further notice was taken at the time, but a few 

 days later I had forwarded to me another specimen, also in a very 

 good condition, which had come into a room, attracted by light, in a 

 house in the Marylebone Eoad on November 24th. The two records 

 taken together seem to point to an abnormal retardation in the 

 development of the species this year, possibly attributable to the pre- 

 valence of generally low temperatures throughout the past summer. — 

 E. Meldola ; 6, Brunswick Square, W.C., December 10th, 1909. 



A New Catalogue of the Coleoptera of the World. — The 

 present number of described species of Coleoptera being about two- 

 thirds greater than it was some thirty years ago, when Gemminger- 

 Harold's ' Catalogus Coleopterorum ' was published, the need of a 

 new catalogue must be admitted. We have received a copy of the 

 first part of the 'Coleopterorum Catalogus,' a work produced by Herr 

 W. Junk of Berlin. The editor of this important work is Herr S. 

 Schenkling, and among the contributors we notice the names of 

 several well-known British specialists. The family treated in Part 1 

 is the Ehysodidae, and the author Herr E. Gestro. We understand 

 that Parts 2-9 are in the press. 



British Spiders. — As the Arachnida are occasionally adverted to 

 in our pages, we may mention that in the ' Transactions ' of the Hull 

 Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club, vol. iv. part ii., Mr. T. Stain- 

 forth gives a list of East Yorkshire Spiders, Harvestmen, and 

 Pseudoscorpions added to the Hull Municipal Museum Collection 

 in 1908. 



British Homoptera. — Mr. Oscar Whittaker contributes " A Pre- 

 liminary Catalogue of the Hemiptera-Homoptera of Lancashire and 



ENTOM. — JANUARY, 1910. D 



