﻿62 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



PiBRis BRASSic^ LARV^ IN JANUARY. — On January 17th, in a 

 garden at Southfields, Mr. H. J. Lee took thirteen nearly full-grown 

 larvas of Pieris brassicce, which he describes as feeding greedily on 

 cabbage at the time of their capture. It was a very sunny day but 

 cold ; five degrees of frost had been registered in the early hours of 

 the morning. Mr. Frohawk, whose life-histories of our British 

 Butterflies are now appearing serially in the ' Field,' records three 

 other instances of the full-fed larvae in January. Two of these may 

 be found in the ' Entomologist ' for 1908, pp. 39, 62. — H. Worsley- 

 WooD ; 31, Agate Eoad, Hammersmith, W. 



HiPPOTION (CHiEROCAMPA) CELBRIO AT CHESTER. — " ComO into 



our house, there's a big moth flying against the window and making 

 such a noise ! " So exclaimed the next-door neighbour of Mr. A. E. 

 Goodman, of Laburnum Lodge, Boughton (a suburb of Glaester), one 

 evening at dusk, in mid-September, 1910. Mr. Goodman went and 

 captured the moth with his hands, I believe, put it in a box, and 

 there it remained until a few days ago, when he wondered if it would 

 be of use to the Grosvenor Museum collection. It is hardly neces- 

 sary to say the Museum was without a specimen, and that the gift 

 was gladly welcomed. The Curator, Mr. A. Newstead, F.E.S., at 

 once pronounced it to be celerio. Now that it is relaxed and set it 

 shows damage to both left wings, is minus antennae (which may yet 

 turn up), and it is also minus some legs. But the wings on the right 

 show that the moth, on entering the room (attracted by the light), 

 had been in excellent condition, and probably had not flown very far. 

 The only other Cheshire record I can find of a capture of the species 

 appears in Day's List, " Alderley Edge, in May, 1878 (W. W. Key- 

 worth, Ent. xi. p. 160, E. L.)." — J. Arkle ; Chester. 



Araschnia levana. — With reference to Mr. Ekins' inquiry 

 (Entom. xlviii. p. 44) as to which brood of A. levana was taken in 

 the Forest of Dean last July, I may say that all I saw were of the 

 second brood, in which the upper side is black with a broken white 

 band across the wings. Thus, at first glance, they bear a strong 

 resemblance to dwarf sibylla, and the few seen on the wing seemed 

 to sail along with all the grace of that butterfly, but they were mostly 

 observed settled with wings expanded, which fact was probably due 

 to the generally dull weather experienced — rain, more or less, every 

 day and overcast skies. Still, evidently the weather was not alto- 

 gether too bad for them, as I obtained ova from a female and suc- 

 ceeded in rearing a few to pupa. The green ova were deposited in 

 strings or chains of about a dozen, suspended from the under side of 

 a nettle leaf, and appeared to be well protected by their similarity to 

 the pendant green seeds of the nettle. The larvae were not grega- 

 rious, although when young half-a-dozen or so, independent of each 

 other, would take up their abode on the under side of a single leaf, 

 and eat small holes through it. When full-fed, however, they might 

 easily be mistaken for half-grown larvae of Vanessa urticce. The chief 

 difference noted was the absence of the yellow colouring of urticce, 



