OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 409 
season they leave their awzre/ia, and issue forth in their fly-state, 
swarming and covering the trees and hedges. 
In a field at Greatham I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching 
their prey near the ground, and found they were hawking after 
these Phalene. The aureli@ of this moth is shining and as black 
as jet, and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled 
round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot 
from falling out.— WHITE. 
I suspect that the insect here meant is not the Pha/ena guercus, 
but the Phalena viridata,* concerning which I find the following 
note in my “ Naturalist’s Calendar” for the year 1785. 
About this time, and for a few days last past, 1 observed the 
leaves of almost all the oak-trees in Denn copse to be eaten and 
destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite 
number of small beautiful pale-green moths flying about the trees ;. 
the leaves of which that were not quite destroyed were curled up, 
and withinside were the exyvze@ or remains of the chrysalzs, from 
whence I suppose the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had 
eaten the leaves.— MARKWICK., 
EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA.—MAY-FLY. 
June 10,1771. Myriads of May-flies appear for the first time on 
the Alresford stream. The air was crowded with them, and the 
surface of the water covered. Large trouts sucked them in as they 
lay struggling on the surface of the stream, unable to rise till 
their wings were dried. 
This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the wonderful 
account that Scopoli gives of the quantities emerging from the rivers 
*If this was the PA. (tortrix) viridana, as suggested by Mr. Markwick, they are 
extremely destructive, and not confined to the south. In some parts of Argyleshire we 
recollect seeing many hundred acres of oak woods stripped of their leaves, and as bare as 
in early spring. The colour of the true 7. viridana, however, is green, not yellow, as Mr. 
White states, and his moth may have been another species. 
