132 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Bryophila algm. — I desire to ask about this rarity. How 

 many have been taken in this country ? I know of two only, 

 which are in Mr. Sidebotham's collection, taken near Strines 

 (Marple), near Manchester. If I remember rightly they were 

 taken in copula, and brought to Mr. Sidebotham alive. He gave 

 one to Mr. Edleston, the other he kept. Afterwards, when he 

 purchased Mr. Edleston's collection, he got the other specimen 

 back again ; and I suppose it still remains in his fine collection. 

 I have seen others, — a pair (reputedly British, of course) in a good 

 collection ; in another, even a series ; but in the last case the 

 owner knew nothing about their history. — J. B. Hodgkinson; 

 Spring Bank, Preston, February 11, 1885. 



Grapholitha (?) CyECANA. — While collecting in the neighbour- 

 hood of Deal, in July last, I captured a specimen of Grapholitha 

 (?) ccecana, which Mr. Sang, of Darlington, kindly named for me. 

 This has been confirmed by Mr. Coverdale, the first captor of 

 the species in Britain. The specimen is a fine female, very dark 

 in colour. — J. Tutt ; 45, Beaconsfield Terrace, Greenwich, S.E. 



The Influence op Weather upon Lepidoptera. — From 

 the following observations, amongst others, made during last 

 year, it would seem that hot, no less than excessively wet, seasons 

 have a prejudicial effect upon the transformations of Lepidoptera. 

 In July, in " digging " coast sand-hills, I found twenty or thirty 

 dead pupse to one live one. Of course there were a few empty 

 cases ; but the dead pupae far outnumbered both empty cases and 

 live pupae. Again, in working ivy, one-fourth of the specimens 

 obtained were cripples. — George Balding ; Ruby Street, 

 Wisbech, February IG, 1885. 



Melanic Variation in Lepidoptera of High Latitudes. — 

 Lord Walsingham, in his interesting address on this subject 

 (Entom. xviii. 80) to the members of the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union on the 3rd instant, observes that the tendency to variation 

 in many northern forms of Lepidoptera is in the direction of 

 melanism, and that this tendency is observable in the majority of 

 the Lepidoptera of the whole Arctic and Subarctic regions when 

 contrasted with their more southern representatives. To this 

 rule there are, however, some exceptions, and Mr. McLachlan, in 

 a paper on the subject of " Variation in Lepidoptera " (Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. Lond., 18G5), after enumerating a number of species 



