188 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Commenting on a letter on the subject from Mr. Powell of Hyéres 
(op. cit., p. 411), he writes: “This seems to give the required con- 
firmation to the conclusion I drew from my observations that the 
food plant of C. avis on the Riviera is Arbutus.” I conjecture, 
judging by Milliére’s exploits in the matter of identification of butter- 
flies, that he would not have been able to separate C. avis and C. rubi, 
while I am doubtful whether even Constant would have been more 
successful, after seeing certain species named by him in the collection 
of a French entomologist which I looked over some years ago. 
Indeed, before Dr. Chapman brought his patient scientific methods to 
bear on the bionomics of this and other lepidoptera, no one I believe 
since Rambur would have had the skill to detect by superficial 
differences only the specific characters of the two, and I do not think 
that Rambur ever collected on the ground where they are both known 
to occur to-day, unless C. avis turns up at Montpellier. With 
regard to the Gieseking collections, my information is drawn wholly 
from Mr. Morris’s account thereof, and the species therein which were 
on view at the sale. The younger Gieseking, I believe, preferred to 
put the Alps between himself and Cannes when war was declared ; 
his father remained, and, as I understand, his property, the collections 
included, was sequestered and sold by order of the Court in March 
last. I see noreason whatever to doubt that Gieseking’s C. avis were 
taken in the neighbourhood of Cannes as defined in the opening 
paragraph of my paper, or that Mr. Morris has properly identified the 
captures recorded by him in the list of local butterflies with which he 
has been good enough to supply me for the basis of my notes. Mr. 
Morris is familiar with the localities where Gieseking worked, and 
has profited by the knowledge to some extent to get together a 
representative collection of the regional lepidoptera also.—H. 
RowtaAnp-Brown ; Harrow Weald, July 13th, 1916. 
Larvan Stace or Hepianus Humuni.—There appears to be 
considerable uncertainty as regards the duration of the larval 
stage of this insect. Mr. Hellins (in Buckler’s ‘ Larvze’) “inclines to 
think that one year would suffice for the whole life of this species.” 
Barrett appears to adopt the same view. lL. W. Newman in his 
text-book gives the larval stage as from July to the following May. 
In July, 1914, I captured in the Shetland Isles a female, which gave 
me a number of ova. These hatched on August 14th, and I placed 
the young larvee on some potted-up plants of dock. As July, 1915, 
passed and no insects appeared, I turned out the pot, to find the 
larvee still small—certainly not more than half grown. In October 
I again inspected the larva, which were then evidently approaching 
full growth. About the middle of April this year I again looked at 
them. They were full grown and one apparently preparing to 
pupate. The first insect emerged on June 23rd. This settles the 
point then that, so far at all events as the Shetland variety is 
concerned, the larval stage occupies nearly two whole years.— 
Percy C. Rem; Feering Bury, Kelvedon. 
VANESSA ANTIOPA IN ScotnAND.—On April 29th last, when my 
son and I were cycling in from Bearsden, near Glasgow, he called 
my attention to a large butterfly which flew over us across the 
