NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 253 



ford on August 1st. To my mind, the recent acquisition is preferable, 

 inasmuch as the light ground shows up the singular markings in 

 bold relief, which the dark ground of the other fails to do. With me, 

 sugaring answered very well the first ten days of August, but since 

 then the numbers of moths gradually declined, gnats being in the 

 ascendant. Query — Did the gnats help drive them away ? Certain 

 it is they have been cruel to the genus Homo. — Charles Oldham ; 

 Woodford, Essex, Sept. 13th, 1899. 



Colour of the Larvae of Amphidasys betularia influenced by their 

 surroundings. — At a recent meeting of the Birmingham Entomological 

 Society Mr. G. H. Kenrick gave an account of an experiment he had 

 tried with larvae of Amphidasys betularia. He had about two dozen 

 larvae from a pair of black parents ; when about a quarter of an inch in 

 length he separated them, putting some into a box lined white, and 

 feeding them on food carefully selected all green ; and the others into 

 an ordinary dirty breeding cage, with a liberal allowance of brown 

 twigs in the food. At the end, all in the white box were of the pale 

 green form ; in the other box most were dark, one or two very dark, 

 but two also pale ; although at the beginning they were all colours and 

 mixed in both boxes ; thus showing that uniform pale surroundings 

 had produced all pale larvae, while variable surroundings had produced 

 a variable lot of larvae. — Colbran J. Wainwright, Hon. Sec. 



Mantis Killing a Bird. — In the ' Journal of the Bombay Natural 

 History Society,' xii. no. 3 (1899, July), p. 578, is recorded the killing 

 of a bird by a Mantis. The bird (Arachnechthra minima) was hovering 

 round the branch on which the Mantis (probably a female of Hierodula 

 bipapilla) was concealed. Whether through fright or no, the Mantis 

 struck at the bird with its fore legs and scalped it. Considering the 

 comparative sizes of the insect and its victim, there is nothing altogether 

 surprising in the occurrence. — G. W. Kirkaldy. 



The Common Earwig. — Having occasion to refer to Dr. D. Sharp's 

 first volume on Insects, in the Cambridge Natural History (1895), 

 I was surprised to find that at p. 214 he speaks of the idea that 

 earwigs enter the ear as a superstition. That they ever penetrate the 

 brain, as formerly supposed, is highly improbable ; but that they 

 occasionally enter the ear there is no manner of doubt ; though such 

 occurrences would naturally be much more common in former times 

 than at present, when people lived out of doors, and were much more 

 in the woods and fields than is the case now. A case was related to 

 me some years ago by a relative of my own, respecting a lady who 

 came out of the garden with an earwig in her ear, which caused her 

 great inconvenience till her sister remembered having heard me say 

 that oil poured into the ear would dislodge any insect that happened 

 to get into the ear ; and this remedy was successfully applied. Mr. F. 

 Enock also tells me that earwigs have frequently dropped into his ear 

 when he has been beating bushes, and they have crept in, and remained 

 there, till he has pulled them out by the tail. The term "superstition" 

 is often used nowadays only to indicate that some particular fact does 

 not happen to have fallen within the writer's own personal experience. 

 — W. F. Kirby; Natural History Museum, South Kensington, Sept. 6th, 

 1899. 



