THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 259 



black than the ground colour. A similar specimen of P. 

 Rapae was taken here some time ago by an entomological 

 friend, and it is still in his collection : he caught it silting 

 on a paling in front of his house. Have you ever seen such 

 specimens, or do you know what causes this curious aberra- 

 tion ? — Jolin M. Braunvell ; 7, Borassa Place, Perth. 



Remarkable Variety of Vanessa UrtioB. — On the 12th of 

 this month I captured a curious specimen of V. Urticse : 

 those parts of the wings which, in an ordinary specimen, are 

 red-brown, in this instance are pale creamy white : the other 

 markings are precisely similar to an ordinary insect. It was 

 my first impression, upon seeing it, that it was a badly- 

 rubbed insect, but upon close examination I found this was 

 not the case. — Thomas Groves ; West-Field Cottage, B,ich- 

 tnond, Yorkshire, April 20, 1869. 



Sesia spheciformis in Staffordshire. — Last year, in North 

 Staffordshire, I and two other members of our local Natu- 

 ralists' Field Club were out collecting, when it fell to the lot 

 of Mr. A, Smith to take a pair of Sesia spheciformis: they 

 were beaten out together from a bush. — {Rev.) M. W. Daltry ; 

 Madeley Vicarage, Newcastle, April 8, 1869. 



Eupithecia consignata. — In May last, Mrs. Hutchinson, 

 of Leominster, sent me a number of eggs of Eupithecia con- 

 signata: on the 17lh of May these produced colourless 

 thread-like larvge, which I placed on a branch of apple : they 

 quickly assumed the colour of the leaves, and fed up rapidly, 

 becoming pupae June 12th to 15th, and the first moths 

 emerged April 11th. The larva has been so fully described 

 by the Rev. H. H. Crewe (Entom. iv. 96), that there is little 

 more to be said about its appearance : in shape it is long 

 and slender, and its head looks disproportionately large, 

 owing to the attenuation of the next following segments : 

 when at rest it sometimes extends itself on the edge of a leaf, 

 at others fixes itself in an erect position in an S-like attitude, 

 and is then scarcely to be distinguished from one of the 

 slender curled filaments which spring from the young shoots 

 of the apple. They are unsocial, irritable creatures, very 

 stationary in their habits, remaining for days on the same 

 leaf, and each larva generally on a separate leaf: when dis- 

 turbed they swing the fore part of their bodies to and fro 

 viciously, the head looking like the weighted end of a life- 



