CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 203 



catch several with my net, a young Bisaya began to do so too, but 

 using a diminutive fishing-rod. His "apparatus" consisted of a 

 thin stick some three feet long, to the end of which he had tied a 

 long hair (it is the custom of the Bisaya men to wear their hair long, 

 and sometimes it reaches well below the waist) ; to this hair was 

 fastened a bait, made from a small grasshopper. Armed with this, he 

 slowly w^alked across the sand-bank, dangling his bait carefully over 

 or near any Cicindelid he saw. Whereupon, in nine cases out of ten, 

 the Cicindelid, wnth feminine curiosity, would walk slowly towards 

 it, and, after slight hesitation, seize the morsel, and thus fall an easy 

 prey to my native entomologist. He had to exercise great care in 

 drawing up the rod evenly, so as to prevent any jerks which might 

 frighten the insect away. In this way he caught quite a number 

 for me, and once the insect had seized the bait, he seldom failed 

 to bring it to the killing-bottle. They told me they had learnt it 

 as a game which they used to play when they were children. I 

 tried it, but without much success ; and I warn intending disciples 

 that it is a game that wants practice. — J. C. Moulton ; Sarawak, 

 May 11th, 1910. 



CAPTURES AND FIELD EEPORTS. 



Spring Butterflies in Northants., Bucks., and Middlesex. — 

 After the miserable experience of last year's summer, followed by a 

 wet, cool autumn, and an open winter, it is something of a surprise 

 to find butterflies generally so plentiful both here and the one or two 

 localities which I have had an opportunity of visiting so far. Insects 

 of all kinds were late in making an appearance in this part of 

 Middlesex — among the hybernators in the house the death-roll was 

 unusually large — ^iDut once the warm days began they quickly re- 

 sponded, and, compared with the dates of previous years, one or two 

 butterflies are even early. For example, I was on the Bucks. Chiltern 

 Hills for an hour or two last Saturday (June 4th), and although there 

 was not much sun, the commoner sorts w^ere well in evidence — 

 Euchloe cardamines and Nisoniades tages in even greater profusion 

 than usual; as also the three ordinary " whites." Callophrys ruhi 

 was swarming, every hawthorn bush and sapling oak when tapped 

 distributing a multitude of worn males, while the females were as 

 common, flitting over the low herbage. Coenonympha pamphilus, 

 a large form and brightly coloured, was also much in evidence ; but 

 of the Lyccenids, Polyommatus icarus did not seem fully out, though 

 I took a specially finely marked female. P. astrarche, on the other 

 hand, was well emerged ; while I was most pleased to turn up two 

 or three perfect examples of Cupido minimus, which for some years 

 has been getting scarcer and scarcer in the several localities here- 

 abouts where the Anthyllis blooms freely, and where I am accustomed 

 to look for it. 



In a wood on the borders of Northamptonshire and Hunts, a 

 w^eek previously (May 28th) I had the good fortune also to note a 

 similar abundance of ordinary butterflies, the glades being particularly 

 affected by Satyrus var. egerides and Gonepteryx rhamni, with occa- 



