126 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



all of the large spring form, and exactly similar in appearance 

 to the present moth, captured in June, 1874. 



A brood of E. pendularia that I reared in 1869 behaved in 

 like manner, moths appearing from July 12th to November 

 26th, being all the small form; and those pupae which 

 remained over the winter, and came out in the spring of 1870, 

 were of the usual type. 



It will be noticed that some of the larvae of E. punctaria 

 were longer feeding up than their brethren, and possibly 

 these were the individuals that remained over the winter; 

 still it is difficult to conceive the determining cause of the 

 behaviour of the different specimens, and still more of their 

 distinctness of form : the favourite hypothesis that heat 

 hastens the development of the summer broods, and so 

 prevents their feeding sufficiently to grow to their normal 

 size, is here hardly applicable. In the instances I give the 

 larvae were exposed to exactly the same influences, climatic 

 and otherwise, and yet the two phases of the same brood 

 were as well marked as in the forms of Selenia, which the 

 heat hypothesis is supposed to explain. 



I merely take the above facts from my note-books, in the 

 hope of calling forth correspondence anent the matter, 

 encouraged by your remarks in the last number of the 

 'Entomologist' (Entom. viii. 107) that you will be disposed 

 to pardon their crudity. Everyone must agree with the 

 spirit of your request, that collectors would give such extracts 

 more frequently : however imperfect the observations, they 

 may lead to enquiry ; and they would at least be more 

 interesting and suggestive reading than the usual Latin " roll- 

 call" of the slain, or those mythical accounts of the capture 

 of re-set alien rarities in England, the exposure of the frauds 

 and follies in connection with which have brought the 

 British entomologist into such disrepute with true naturalists, 

 and made him the subject of ridicule amongst the more sober 

 and less gullible members of the craft. 



B. G. Cole. 



Tlie Common, Stoke Newington, N. 

 May 11, 1875. 



