NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 173 



Notes on Gall collecting.— For the last seven or eight 

 years I have devoted my spare time from December to April in 

 collecting galls of various species, making from sixteen to twenty 

 journeys each year. A long rod is indispensable, and some 

 patience is required to fill my eight large cages. With me gall 

 collecting has not proved a success ; but it has this advantage, — 

 it can be pursued during the winter, when there is little or 

 nothing else to be done in Entomology, and the specimens of 

 moths reared from them are always in the finest possible 

 condition. My principal object has been to complete my series 

 of Ephippipliora oh s cur ana ; of this I have only netted two 

 specimens in the perfect state during my thirty years' collecting. 

 I have bred from galls the following Lepidoptera (besides a host 

 of species of other orders, which I do not collect) : — E. ohscurana, 

 scarce; Coccyx splendidulana and C . argyrana, covcimon; Heusimene 

 Jimhriana, not common, and principally from the Kentish woods ; 

 Teleia luculella, common, and Gelechia scalella [aleella), scarce; 

 Bucculatrix ulmella, a fair series ; (Ecopliora lunar ella, nine the 

 first year, but none since ; and two or three of the genus 

 Nepticula. — William Machin ; 29, Carlton Eoad, Carlton 

 Square, E., May 14, 1885. 



Aphides and their partiality for Strongly- scented 

 Plants. — The predilection of Aphides for the leaves of highly- 

 scented conservatory plants, and plants bearing fragrant flowers, 

 is certainly remarkable. For instance, the strongly-perfumed 

 pelargoniums are peculiarly liable to become infested ; the other 

 geraniums — with the exception of the ivy-leaved, the leaves and 

 scent of which bear so extraordinary a resemblance to the plant 

 after which it is named — are never, or " hardly ever," thus 

 blighted ; and it may be noted that the stronger the odour the 

 more liable to Aphis attack, — the nutmeg, the oak-leaf, the 

 lemon, and the old-fashioned " unique," with its scent of pepper- 

 mint, being especial penchants of the green-fly. Look, too, at the 

 rose (" sweetest flower that grows "), at the lemon verbena, the 

 Daphne odorata, and the carnations, how thickly covered they all 

 become with the detestable little pests. With plants out of doors 

 the rule seems to be reversed, for whilst gooseberry and currant 

 trees, white and red, are frequently sadly disfigured by thick 

 swarms of Aphides, the aromatic black currant and the 

 poisonous (?) American R'lbes escape unmolested, Tlie only 



