260 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



LiARViE OF SllERINTHUS OCELLATUS DESTROYED BY WASPS. Dr. 



Gardner informs me that the depredations of the wood-wasp deprived 

 him this summer of a large and promising brood of S. ocellatxis. For 

 long he noticed that the tale of caterpillars was diminishing, and only 

 discovered the cause by accidentally observing one of the wasps engaged 

 in his act of murder and robbery combined. The wasp planted himself 

 on the back of an unfortunate larva, and deliberately cut him in two 

 with his jaws, seizing the capital half, carefully tucking in the head, 

 and flew off with it. Soon after he returned for the caudal half. — 

 Harold Hodge ; 6, Crown Office Row, Temple. 



A New Habitat for L. lycidas. — There are now a sufficient number 

 of collectors who visit Switzerland every year in pursuit of our sport 

 to make it a matter of interest that I can record the capture of six 

 specimens of the above insect at St. Nicolas on July 18th of this year. 

 I was obliged to leave that same day ; but I showed my captures to the 

 Rev. C. Buckmaster, who writes me word that he followed up my path 

 of luck on the following day, and was also successful in taking ( L. lycidas. 

 — (Rev.) F. E. Lowe ; St. Stephen's Vicarage, Guernsey. 



Dicrorampha flavidorsana, Knaggs. — Through the courtesy of Dr. 

 Knaggs and Mr. C. G. Barrett I have had the opportunity of 

 examining the type of D. flavidorsana, together with series of alpinana, 

 Staint., and qiiastionana, Zell., and also the examples of D. petiverella, 

 referred to by Dr. Knaggs in his paper (ante, pp. 201-203). All these 

 specimens were subsequently exhibited at a meeting of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London. Dr. Knaggs has already clearly shown, in 

 the article cited, that the name flavidorsana is the prior one for the 

 insect we have long known as D. alpinana, Staint., and more recently 

 as quasiionana, Zell. There is no doubt whatever that all three 

 descriptions apply to the same species ; and it is equally beyond 

 contention that flavidorsana is much earlier than quastionana. The 

 1 Manual ' name cannot stand, as a D. alpinana was described by 

 Treitschke in the year 1830 ; and this is not the same species as that 

 referred to as alpinana by Stainton. Some more or less aberrant spe- 

 cimens of D. petiverella were at one time doubtfully referred to D. flavi- 

 dorsana, and it is probably due to this fact that tbe latter is so generally 

 considered to be a variety of the former. In 1881 I captured and bred 

 specimens of D. flavidorsana in North Devon, and published a note on 

 the occurrence at the time (Entom. xiv. 159). Several of the Micro- 

 lepidopterists of that date, to whom I showed the specimens, held the 

 opinion that they were alpinana of the ' Manual,' and in this view they 

 are now proved to have been correct. At the same time, however, they 

 were in error in maintaining that the insects had nothing to do with 

 flavidorsana, which they insisted upon relegating to D. petiverella as a 

 form of that species. — Richard South; 100, Ritherdon Road, Upper 

 Tooting, S.W. 



The Insect Fauna of Hastings and St. Leonards. — The Rev. E. 

 N. Bloomfield has published a third ' Supplement ' to this local list. 

 A large number of additions are brought forward, 



