THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 103 



ever known them attempt. 1 find that all larvaj do best in 

 the open air, but it is not always easy to manage this. A 

 greenhouse or conservatory, or tool-shed with free ventilation, 

 is a very suitable place. 1 do not recommend sprinkling the 

 food. — Edward Newman.^ 



Breeding SmerintJnts ocellatiin. — 1 am anxious to bring 

 up some larvae of S. ocellatus which 1 have just had hatched. 

 If yon could inform me of any mode of doing so I should be 

 extremely obliged. 1 had some last year, which I fed on 

 common willow and apple, but they all died. — Edward F. 

 Bisshopp : Albert College^ Framlbigha'm, June 4, 1868. 



[I have never found the least difficulty in rearing Smerin- 

 thus ocellatus. I believe it is common to take too much 

 care, as for instance to change them too often, and perhaps 

 handle them too much. I have often kept this species in a 

 large garden-pot half-full of earth, giving them Salix fragilis 

 (common willow) as food, which 1 stick in a small phial filled 

 with water and buried up to the neck in the earth ; over the 

 pot may be laid a square piece of glass, or gauze, or muslin 

 of any kind, kept on by an elastic ring of vulcanized India- 

 rubber. — Edward Newmafi.'] 



Abundance of Bombyx neustria. — I do not know whether 

 the extensive appearance of Bombyx neustria in South-west 

 Middlesex has come to your knowledge. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Hounslow and Harlington their depredations have 

 been so extensive that among the market gardeners very con- 

 siderable alarm existed lest the trees should be so stripped 

 of their foliage as to materially injure the fruit. It may be 

 worthy of notice that they are far more plentiful on the better 

 kinds of fruit trees, such as quarendens, king of pippins, and 

 hawthorn deans. Many thousands have been destroyed by 

 shooting them with a mixture of sand and gunpowder. It 

 appears to be very local, infesting every tree in one parish, 

 while the adjoining parish remains perfectly free. Can any 

 means be suggested for destroying the eggs, which it seems 

 certain will be laid this autumn? It is scarcely possible that 

 the pretty bracelets will be discernible to any but an expe- 

 rienced eye, certainly not to the uninitiated on whom the 

 search over so many acres must devolve : it tempts one to 

 wish that the male lacquey alone rejoiced in the winged 

 state. We are told that frost and snow do not injure the 



