﻿66 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



blowing, clinging very tightly to the ragwort. A. tritici was in 

 thousands ; every modification in marking and colour seemed to be 

 represented. Some of the selected forms we brought home are very 

 beautiful, but not so large as the few I took at Wicken in 1911. It 

 is curious to note that the dull brown Wicken form seems to be very 

 scarce at St. Anne's, and never so large. I took one with the wings 

 a deep greyish fuscous, the costa broadly marked in pure snow 

 white ; there also are other pure white longitudinal marks along the 

 nervures ; a number of specimens we took have costa creamy white, 

 but only one with the costa beautiful pure white. A. cursoria was 

 there, too, in quantity, but not so commonly as A. tritici. One plain 

 unicolorous form, without markings, except the black dot at the 

 lower half of the reniform stigma, was captured, and worthy of men- 

 tion, as Mr. Murray said he had rarely seen such a good example of 

 this obsoletely marked form. 



Another evening was spent in the gueneei ground, where we also 

 obtained some beautifully fresh Noctua umbrosa ; this insect, though 

 usually taken in poor condition, was to be secured on the ragwort 

 here in perfect state. We made one journey north of Blackpool to 

 see if any belated larvae of Nyssia zonaria were left. It was very 

 easy to find where they had fed, but a long search only produced one 

 larva ; two pupge were raked out of the sandy soil. The larva 

 appears to be polyphagous, but shows a decided preference for Lotus 

 corniculatus. In the evening we went to Lytham in search of 

 Mamestra alhicolon larvae, these we obtained in fair abundance, 

 together wuth the larv£e of Agrotis ripa, feeding on the sea-plantain : 

 they were of all sizes, from half-an-inch till practically full-fed. Mr. 

 Murray said he had never found any difficulty in rearing them, 

 but when we got them to London ours did not thrive, owing, per- 

 haps, to the different atmospheric conditions. They readily ate the 

 broad-leaved plantain with which we supplied them, but all became 

 affected with diarrhoea and died. We found growing on a marshy 

 patch quite close to the sea, at Lytham, a short fine species of rush, 

 the flowers of which were a most attractive bait, cursoria was most 

 abundant on this. I might also mention we took one or two Euholia 

 limitccta ; these were of a very rich dark brown, and very different to 

 the southern forms of this insect. Cidaria testata was the only 

 other Geometer we saw commonly, but they were rather worn, and do 

 not appear to be very different from the Hampshire forms I have. 

 Mr. Murray also showed us how to take larvae of Dicranura vinula 

 and Smerinthus ocellatus on the dwarf sallows, which abound on the 

 sand-hills. His method was to notice where the twigs had been 

 stripped of their foliage, then search the ground immediately beneath 

 for frass ; if this was fresh, he carefully searched the bush and gene- 

 rally found a fine full-fed D. vinula or S. ocellatus. The marvellous 

 way in which these larvae are protected can only be appreciated by 

 actual searching. In fact, we found the best way to obtain them, 

 once having the frass chie, was to feel along the branches. We took 

 a number of Eupithecia larvae from ragwort, but we have not yet 

 been'able to determine the species. 



The following is a list of species observed, the practical absence of 

 Geometers being worthy of note: — Pieris brassica, P. rapce, P. napi, 



