13S 



RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY DOCTOR. 



By H. W. LiVETT. 



CONCERNING SUGAR; WITH A FEW WORDS ON IVY. 



All men (save those who expect nothing) have their 

 disappointments, and entomological collectors are not 

 excepted. My experience of sugar last season was a falling 

 off from the previous year's results ; and I hear from 

 numerous quarters that others have been equally, if not more 

 unfortunate. The laws governing scarce and plentiful years 

 as regards insects appear to be, as yet, in a great degree 

 beyond our ken. Is it probable that the long-continued 

 rains of winter and spring destroyed many in the pupa 

 state? or do the recent enactments relating to the destruction 

 of birds cause empty spaces in our cabinets, as well as on 

 our fruit shelves ? Whatever the reason, my list of captures 

 at sugar — applied, as usual, to my espalier trees — is a short 

 one. Noctua xanthograplia, TriphcBua pronuha, and 

 Xylophasia polyodon (mirahile dictu .'J, wonderfully few ; 

 Catocala nupta, plentiful — 1 took about eighteen or twenty ; 

 Noctua rnbi, a fair number ; Agrotis sancia, about a dozen ; 

 and its cousin, A. suffusa, plentiful ; A. segetum, a pest from 

 its numbers ; Noctua C-uigrum, plentiful ; a few Scopelosoma 

 satellitia, Acronycta tridens, A. rumicis; two Cosmia 

 diffiiiis ; Miselia oxyacantlicB, plentiful: one Xylina semi- 

 hrunnea: and several X. rhizolitha, — with my old friends, 

 Anchocelis pistacina and Polia Jlavocincta, nearly make the 

 list. The latter two were quite as numerous as in 1875, 

 though they appeared much later. On the 15th September 

 I saw the first specimen; during the following fortnight 1 

 took upwards of a hundred P. /iavocinata,whi]e A. pistacina 

 — which I did not take — were, as the auctioneers say, " too 

 numerous to particularise." 



1 am surprised to find P. Jlavocincia to be, to a certain 

 extent, local. I had numerous applications for it last year 

 from all parts of England. One correspondent in Hertford- 

 shire said he had collected thirty or forty years, and had 

 never met with the species ; and another in Yorkshire told 

 me, that although he had oiten seen P. chi by the dozen 

 silting on walls, he seldom met with one P. Jlavocincia. 



