68 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



succumbed on the 12th and 14th. On the former date two went 

 under the earth in a flower-pot, leaving two, both having ceased to 

 eat and roam about. These eventually turned in on the 16th, without 

 having completed their fourth moult, it having required exactly 

 eigbty-six days from the hatching to the commencement of pupation. 

 I unearthed the first two cocoons Dec. 18th ; one was so thin that it 

 fell to pieces on touching it, the other was very thick, like that of 

 Acherontia atropos but not so large. This contained a lively pupa, 

 which could ouly have taken this form a few hours. A day or two 

 afterwards I looked at the other two, and found they had burrowed 

 only two inches, where they remained dead, and without having 

 attempted to make cocoons. Mr. W. Henry Barton, who acknowledges 

 that the game is not worth the candle, can claim to have surmounted 

 the difficulty. Although successful, he is only awarded a small 

 average of one-eighth per cent. — H. W. Bell-Marley ; Ravenscourt 

 Park. 



[The following excerpt from "Abstract of Proceedings of the South 

 London Entomological and Natural History Society," 1896, p. 29, 

 may be of interest in connection with the above: — "Mr. Sturt ex- 

 hibited specimens of Sphinx convolvuli which he had bred in December 

 and January from the larvas sent him from Cornwall (Proc. 1895, 

 p. 57). Mr. Tutt remarked that Mr. Sturt deserved great credit for 

 getting his S. convolvuli through, and he was, he believed, the first 

 British lepidopterist who had reared the insect from the larva to the 

 imago. Some years ago Prof. Poulton got the larva through to the 

 late autumn, and proved that the insect passed the winter in that 

 stage. . . . Mr. McArthur said that men who worked in potato 

 fields often brought in the pupre of S. convolvuli, as well as those of 

 A. atropos.'' 1 — Ed.] 



Porthetria (Ocneria) dispar in America. — From the latest report 

 of the State Entomologist concerning the extermination of the gipsy 

 moth (Porthetria dispar) in Massachusetts (Bull. No. 11), we learn that 

 something in the way of a check has been effected. The cost up to 

 the present time has been nearly 800,000 dols. It would appear, 

 however, that unless a further large sum is available for continued 

 operations during the next few years, and without any interval, all 

 the work that has been done during the past six years will be lost. 



Gynandromorphous Hemerophila abruptaria. — At a meeting of the 

 Entomological Society of London held on February 2nd last a speci- 

 men of H. abruptaria was exhibited which was female in character 

 so far as concerns the wings and right antenna ; the left antenna, 

 however, was strongly pectinated. Several dark examples of the same 

 species were also shown. 



The Genus Erebia. — We are requested to state that the specimens 

 of the genus Erebia exhibited by Mr. H. J. Elwes, F.R.S., in illus- 

 tration of his remarks at the last meeting of the Entomological Society 

 of London will, by arrangement with Sir William Flower, Director of 

 the British Museum (Natural History), be on view at that institution 

 for a few weeks. The series contains, almost without exception, 

 representatives of all the known species and more prominent varieties, 



