114 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The Hon. T. De Grey exhibited specimens of Agapanthia 

 Cardui, bred from larvae in stems of thistles. 



Mr. A. G. Butler exhibited Otiorhynchns picipes, which 

 had been found destructive to rose trees at Manchester, 

 eating off the young shoots. 



Entomological Notes, Captures, S^c. 



Eutomologizing on the Tliames Bank. — I have just re- 

 turned from a short excursion down the river. I have 

 examined the banks and mud islands on the Kent and Essex 

 shores, but, owing to a strong wind one day and a drizzling 

 rain the next, I have done very little collecting. I vyent 

 ashore first on the Essex side : almost the only shrub or tree 

 on the island is blackthorn ; the larvae of C. neustria and T. 

 Cratcegi have eaten every leaf; in some places the entire 

 length of the hedges is so thoroughly denuded that the larvae 

 hang dead by hundreds, literally starved. We can hardly 

 realize the devastating effects of insects, described by Kirby 

 & Spence, &c., as occasionally occurring on the Continent ; 

 but a good idea may be formed on seeing the scorched and 

 leafless sloe-bushes completely matted and woven together 

 with the webs of Hyponomeuta padellus, and now thickly 

 studded with the cocoons of Bombyx neustria, and at every 

 few yards a mass of webs covered with the young larvae of 

 Trichiura Crataegi, that have certainly only been born to die, 

 unless they fall back on reeds or burdock, for there is nothing 

 else green for hundreds of yards. I saw a reed-stack completely 

 covered with tlie half-grown larvae of T. Crataegi ; evidently 

 unwilling to cross the dusty road, they had mounted the 

 stack, as if to have a look across the country. Two men were 

 amusing themselves by burning the webs (covered as usual 

 with the cast skins of the young larvae), fondly supposing 

 they were staying the progress of the blight by destroying 

 thousands of eggs. "The sloe is the only fruit that comes to 

 anything on the island, but it is terribly blighted this year 

 surely," said one of the men to me. These bushes usually 

 produce a large quantity of sloes, which are largely used in 

 the manufacture of British port. 1 found the prevailing idea 

 was that the hot dry weather and the white butterflies caused 



