292 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



wanders some distance before turning, and with no apparent 

 reason, except it be natural instinct of self-preservation, or some 

 provision of nature whereby the creature, by being kept in 

 motion, is the better able to get rid of all digested food, and thus 

 become prepared for the pupal stage. We know not : it is 

 merely my own idea and it may be wrong, though I can produce 

 arguments to support it. 



Even now, as I write, I have three or four larvae of Macro- 

 fjlossa stellatarum that have turned colour, and have for two days 

 been wandering round their box from end to end, apparently un- 

 decided as to where to pupate. I might mention that these 

 larvae, varying from infancy to old age, have just been found at 

 West Kirby, on Sept. 18th, but no signs of D. galii were to be 

 found there. 



But I must get on This day, which had stirred my hopes 

 and expectations to their very zenith, ended in failure and dis- 

 appointment, and I went home feeling very angry with myself for 

 not having been " more on the spot," in every sense of the term, 

 a week earlier. I ought to add that on Aug. 17th I searched 

 carefully over much of the same ground for Choerocampa por- 

 cellus and M. stellatarum with much the same result. I was a 

 week too late. The frass of both these larvae, more especially 

 M. stellatarum, was there, but they appeared to have been all 

 of one batch, and every larva had gone down. Not a trace 

 of any email galii larvae did I see, showing clearly that the 

 period from ova to full-grown larva must occupy less than four 

 weeks. 



The golfer after a bad day's sport goes home and vows he will 

 never touch a club again, but invariably the next sunny morning 

 sees him issuing forth to the fray again, recruited in strength 

 and prepared to face and overcome any difficulty. In fact, some 

 unknown quantity within him seems to whisper, "You can and 

 will succeed if you stick to it and try again." It was with senti- 

 ments of a similar nature that the morning of Sept. 18th found 

 me training out to Waterloo to make trial of the bedstraw there. 

 A brief two hours' search was all that I could afford ; however it 

 was enough. The spot which I visited has been known to me 

 since 1884, and, though in the midst of houses and infested by 

 hens, the bedstraw grows well, and has generally been productive 

 o'f C. porcellus and M. stellatarum (when present in the district at 

 all). The first patch near the road showed me that D. galii had 

 also visited the Lancashire coast this year, for there was the 

 frass, and there, sad to say, was a dead caterpillojjii The head 

 and first two segments were quite fresh and still brightly 

 coloured, but to all appearance a hen had been sampling the 

 latter portion. Nearer to the sea I again found frass, but was 

 once more disappointed as the caterpillar had gone, probably 

 having buried on the previous day. However, success eventually 



