﻿190 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



specimens. To illustrate this, I may mention that some time 

 ago I kept a careful record of all the winter pupse I happened to 

 have that year. In no less than six different species every pupa 

 hatched, and in no case did less than eighty-four per cent, 

 emerge. With one exception the percentage of perfect speci- 

 mens varied between seventy-three and one hundred. The one 

 exception was a batch of Tceniocampa miniosa, in which, though 

 90 per cent, hatched, only 63 per cent, were perfect, there 

 being an unusual number of cripples, owing chiefly to the fact 

 that the imagines came out with a rush a little before 1 expected 

 them, and disturbed each other through being in too small 

 a box. 



Finally, I would point out that in the rearing of larvae more 

 than in almost any other scientific investigation, it is dangerous 

 to place too much reliance on single experiments. Under certain 

 circumstances, and particularly in the case of small numbers — 

 twenty or under — it is sometimes possible to get through a single 

 batch of larvae without any of the treatment that is otherwise 

 found to be specially required by the species dealt with. Single 

 experiments, of course, have their value, but it is only by 

 repeatedly rearing the larvae of the same species, or of those 

 closelj' related, that it is possible to make dependable deduc- 

 tions as to what factors conduce to the greatest success. Some 

 entomologists, indeed, seem to be much too easily satisfied, and 

 are apt to say that a certain species is quite easy to breed because 

 they have once got a few through, without considering either the 

 size of the imagines or their number in proportion to the original 

 number of larvae. To start with, say, two hundred larva and 

 only get about twenty somewhat undersized imagines I should 

 consider a failure, and only useful as a help in indicating what 

 sort of drastic alterations in treatment would be needed at the 

 next attempt. 



GAKDEN NOTES. 

 By Claude Moeley, F.Z.S. 



(Continued from 1914, p. 218.) 



8. The Flight of an Homopteroii. — The only time I have seen 

 Acocephalus nervosus, Schr., on the wing was August 14th, when 

 one flew across the east lawn in a curve round a cypress tree, 

 and then at a considerable pace, though not fast (for an insect), 

 and in a straight line — resembling the flight of the Apliodii — for 

 some twelve yards, at about four and a half feet above the 

 ground. At the time the air was calm and warm, with an 

 extremely slight southerly breeze. That the vision of this species 

 is not very keen while on the wing may be conjectured from the 



