CAPTUKES AND FIELD REPORTS. 307 



Setting Relaxed Lepidoptera. — Being busy during the summer 

 months, I have to set most of my insects during the autumn and 

 winter, after having duly relaxed them. I am told in one of the text- 

 books that relaxed insects are liable to " spring," and that it is 

 advisable to touch the wiugs at the base with cement to prevent this. 

 As my house is a new one, and therefore probably still somewhat 

 damp, I procured a bottle of cement (from Watkins and Doncaster) 

 with which to operate. The first thing I found was that the cement 

 was much too thick, and that "touching" the base of the wings meant 

 bringing away some of the legs, and in the more delicate insects 

 possibly a wing. On advice I added vinegar (acetic acid) to the cement, 

 and made it more workable. I first of all set the insects, leaving them 

 on the boards some three weeks or more, then took them off, applied 

 some of the cement, and strapped them down again for a night or two, 

 or possibly a week. I am pretty expert with my fingers, and pride 

 myself on my setting, especially on the arrangement of the antennae. 

 Most of my insects came off the boards looking as well as most people 

 would desire. I then put my insects into a store-box, and wrap up in 

 brown paper and place on top of kitchen dresser. To-day I took down 

 some of the boxes and opened them. To my intense disgust, many of 

 the insects looked as if they would fly out of the box, with their wings 

 up, and their autenna? all awry ! Of course they cannot be re-set. 

 The cement seems to do more harm than good. I shall be glad if 

 anyone will advise me what to do. — A. H. Rydon ; " Awbrook," Lind- 

 field, Sussex, Oct. 28th, 1899. 



CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 



Notes on Lepidoptera from the Chester District. — V. atalanta 

 was unusually common in August and September. A specimen was takeu at 

 night at a Chester electric lamp. So abundant were the larva3 that I might 

 almost say they were to be found on every clump of nettles. Small larvae 

 were feeding up when the butterfly was on the wing in August — surely a 

 second brood ! I do not think I ever saw so many butterflies on a given 

 day as I did, on Aug. 10th, in the Shotwick district, at the base of the 

 Wirral peninsula, between the estuaries of the Dee and Mersey. The 

 landscape was fairly enlivened by them — no less than eleven species : Pieris 

 brassica, P. rapce, P. napi, Vanessa urticm, V. io, V. atalanta, Pararge 

 megara, Epinephele ianira, E. tithonus (the latter abundant and variable), 

 Folyommatus phlwas, and Lyccena icarus (alexis). In this disttict we came 

 upon a marsh dried up by the excessive heat and drought, and covered 

 with a tall and luxuriant growth of vegetation. Here we could have taken 

 any number of the plume, (Edematophorus lithodactylus, a new record, I 

 believe, for the district list. On low young sallows and poplars we found, 

 throughout the Sealand and Shotwick neighbourhoods, from Aug. '2nd to 

 Aug. 10th, lepidopterous eggs quite new to us. They were almost if not 

 quite the size of the egg of Dicranura vinula. In every case they were 

 attached to the under side of the leaf, sometimes singly and sometimes in 

 batches of from two to six. They were whitish, with a pale brown apical 



