TRIFID^. 33 » 



In the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Stephens, author of 

 the Illustrations, in the British Museam, are five specimens, 

 all set exactly in the same manner — that formerlj' in use in 

 this country — that is, with a rather drooping appearance, 

 from the front edge of the fore wings being scarcely advanced 

 before the head. These, Mr. J. W. Douglas informs me, 

 were fully believed in by Mr. Stephens, who stated that they 

 were taken — though not by himself — on a fence or on trees 

 in Kichmond Park, Surrey. In the collection of Dr. P. B. 

 Mason is a specimen labelled as taken on the park paling at 

 Richmond by the late Mr. Edwin Shepherd. 



In Mr. Haworth's paper in the first volume of the Trans- 

 actions of the Entomological Society of London, entitled 

 " Review of the Rise and Progress of the Science of Ento- 

 mology in Great Britain, chronologically digested," 1807, in 

 a very full account of the works on entomology then extant 

 in this country, he remarks respecting the British Miscellany, 

 by James Sowerby, F.L.S. : " Table 37 finely represents, as a 

 new species, the rare Bonibyx olcagina of Fab. and of Lep. 

 Brit., and Noctua olcagina of Hiib. Schmet, cum icone. I 

 have seen Mr. Plastead's specimen, here mentioned, several 

 years since, which that gentleman dug the pupa of in 

 Battersea Fields along with Noctua Persicarioi, and have also 

 seen another which was caught in Scotland twenty years 

 ago, and my friend Mr. Donovan, F.L.S., found one in 

 Wales." 



Stephens says (Ilhtstrations of British Entomology^ 1829): 

 "Very rare; specimens have been found in Richmond 

 Park, and one was taken in the pupa state by Mr. Plastead 

 some twenty or thirty years ago in Battersea Fields ; others 

 have occurred near Bristol, and Mr. Donovan, I believe, 

 captured one in South Wales ; it has also been taken in 

 Scotland ; my specimens were from the former locality {sic\ 

 and I have been fortunate enough to have had nearly a 

 dozen examples at various periods." These, so far as I 

 know, are all the existing records of the species in the British 



