102 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Mr. Bond was never in the Blandford district— properly so called 

 — in his life. 



2. "New Forest" should be interpreted to mean "near 

 Ringwood," the exact spot of heathland where Mr. Bond used, 

 year after year, to work for the insect, accompanied by George 

 Gulliver and sometimes by the Kev. 0. P. Cambridge, being well 

 known to me. It is situated in Hampshire, though very near 

 the boundary of Dorset, and although not within the limits of 

 the New Forest, it is only about four miles from the western 

 edge of that tract. In 1892, for the second time within com- 

 paratively recent years, the range of heath in which it lies was 

 entirely destroyed by an extensive fire. 



I fully agree with Mr. Fowler that the insect is only single- 

 brooded in this country. No doubt the reason why some have 

 thought that there is a second brood is because, in certain of its 

 colonies, the moths always emerge several weeks earlier than in 

 others, which lie in the same part of the country, and in some 

 cases even further south. Thus, it has been taken by my friends 

 or myself in May (in the exceptionally early season of 1893), June, 

 July, and August, but, in my experience, the moths in any given 

 colony emerge at about the same date, and are, in that particular 

 spot, only obtainable during one or two consecutive weeks in the 

 course of the year. 



As regards the food-plants of the larva, we learn, from some 

 interesting notes in Ent. Mo. Mag. 2nd ser. i. pp. 255-6, and 

 p. 298, some of the following facts, the rest having been commu- 

 nicated to me (in litt.) by friends : — 



1. On the Continent. — Larvae found by Mr. G. T. Baker in 

 Switzerland feeding "on a broadish-leaved grass," there being 

 no heath in the vicinity, were successfully reared by him on 

 various kinds of grass, while Herr Konewka, of Berlin, who in 

 nature has found the larva on Calluna vulgaris only, reared the 

 moths, from eggs laid in confinement, by feeding the larvae on 

 lettuce leaves. In Lep. der Schweiz. p. 80 (1880), Professor 

 Frey says, " Larva on Calluna and low plants." 



2. In England. — The following curiously different results 

 have been obtained by those observers who have tried to rear 

 larvae, resulting from ova laid by females captured on the heaths 

 in West Hants or East Dorset: — The Bev. E. N. Bloomfield 

 found that the larvae apparently would not touch Calluna vulgaris 

 or Erica cinerea, but began to feed on Poa annua and Aira 

 flexuosa, after which their lives were ended by an accident. Mr. 

 H. Goss got larvae to feed well on both Erica cinerea and E. 

 tetralix, but they all died off when Calluna vulgaris was given 

 them as a substitute. Mr. J. H. Fowler fed some young larvae 

 on lettuce for a time, but they all died off; he could not induce 

 them to feed on any kind of heath or lichen, and fancied that a 



