NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 75 



ascends the tree, aud joins with her usually at about three or four feet 

 from the ground; the female does not turn when joined by the male, 

 but remains still in an ascending position ; and as long as they remain 

 united the male has its head in the direction of the base of the tree. 

 The disengaged males, which usually number ten to one of the others, 

 rest on the trees in a normal position. This moth is abundant in 

 Middlesex, exceedingly so here ; aud we regularly grease-band our 

 apple-trees, the large numbers caught show with what results. In the 

 ' Entomologist' for February, 1895, p. 59, Mr. Rowland Brown men- 

 tioned that in the previous December the water of the dyke was strewn 

 with the dead bodies of the males, and this is a thing of annual 

 occurrence. — Geo. Wall ; Grim's Dyke, Harrow- Weald. 



Tapinostola bondii. — Last week a landslip of the greensand, 

 opposite " The Vicarage " here, shifted one end of the ground upon 

 which T. hondii occurs ; but fortunately the more inaccessible portions 

 of the locality, which furnish the insect with its head-quarters, being 

 well shored up by a strong stone wall, are in no present danger. It is 

 curious to observe how excessively local and at the same time abundant 

 the species is, or was, in its metropolis. For near on forty years men 

 and boys have taken it by hundreds upon hundreds, and yet have not 

 succeeded in eradicating it. The chief reasons for this concentration 

 of the insect would seem to be that the best ground is difficult to work, 

 and therefore never disturbed excepting in the hondii season ; and that 

 the food-plant (Airhcnatherum avenaceum) in the dry sandy soil grows 

 rampant, and the tubers at the base of the stalks spread about, and 

 thus afford an exuberance of nourishment (see Deakin, ' Florigraphia 

 Britauica,' vol. i. p. 101) ; whereas there does not appear to be that 

 tendency to such vigorous growth in clayey or chalky land. Bondii, 

 so far as I am aware, has never been found on the chalk ; but I have 

 been told that a straggling specimen was once taken in "the warren" 

 upon the gault. — H. G. Knaggs ; Folkestone, Feb. 9th, 1897. 



Forcing Achekontia atropos. — In a late number I wrote that I 

 proposed to try again the "moist forcing" of some pupas of A. atropos. 

 I beg now to state the results. Two larvfe and eight pupae were sent to 

 me from Sept. 4th to lOtli. I placed the eight pupte on moss, in a pot 

 kept damp, by the fireside. Of these two were found to be dead ; very 

 probably injured when found by the potato-diggers. One moth emerged 

 Nov. 4th ; Dec. 2ud, one ; 7th, one. Both these last were "crippled," 

 one slightly; the other did not appear to have power to dilate its wings. 

 Jan. 1st, another emerged; and another on the lOtli. Both these 

 were very fine and perfect insects, and one still remains under treat- 

 ment. The two larvae which went down in pots are still in a cool 

 greenhouse. I may see the perfect insect in May or June. — H. W. 

 Livett; V/ells, Somerset, Feb. 9th, 1897. 



AcHERONTiA ATROPOS. — I have been fortunate enough to rear four 

 imagines from an equal number of larva?. The pup^e were damped 

 and forced according to the advice which has been given in the maga- 

 zines. The larvae came into my hands in August and early September. 

 Mr. Leech was kind enough to send rue the two larvae which he 

 recorded (Entoni. xxix. 366). All the larvae pupated as soon as I got 

 them, and they were left alone until the beginnnig of October. They 



