THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 425 
that numbers must have perished by other means; yet, 
nevertheless, the moths were common, and I observed them 
continuously from about June 20th to the end of August. (I 
hope no one will accuse me of helping to exterminate the 
species, for I must mention that I took as many larve as I 
had room for, to save them from death at the hands of the 
gardener above mentioned, and set at liberty all the moths I 
did not require for my own series. The larve proved much 
infested with ighneumons.) The curious part of the matter 
was, that the larve were almost exclusively attached to two 
gooseberry-bushes, which are trained against the wall of the 
house, and grow out of the gravel-walk, so that it must be, [ 
should think, a difficult matter for them to bury. These two 
bushes they entirely defoliated. ‘There are several other 
gooseberry- and currant-bushes in our garden, but there were 
comparatively few larve on them.— B. Lockyer; 179, 
Camden Road, London, N. W., October 5, 1871. 
Moths and Sugar.—With reference to Mr. G. B. Corbin’s 
communication as to “moths and sugar,” I may state that at 
one time I was in the habit of sugaring every fine evening 
throughout the summer, in the woods, near here. I have 
often kept females, captured by this means, in order to obtain 
eges, and have seldom found difficulty in obtaining them. 
In fact, I have generally found that if the insect was left in a 
pill-box for one evening eggs would be deposited. As to the 
eggs when laid not producing larve, I have, at this time,, 
part of a large brood of young larve of Noctua festiva,. 
produced from eggs laid by two or three females of that 
species, captured by me at the end of last June, at sugar. 
And, besides these, I have, at various times, obtained eggs of 
several other common Noctue, taken at sugar, all of which 
have hatched in due course.—B. Lockyer. 
Chelonia caja.—I had about two hundred eggs of C. caja 
(from the same moth), which hatched about the end of July. 
I am sorry I did not keep the exact date. They were all fed 
on the same plant (dock), but I soon found about fifty grew 
much faster than the others; these have continued increasing 
in size, and some have begun to spin. If it is of any interest 
to you, I will let you know if the chrysalids change this 
year.—Miss E. Bethell; 54, High Street, Croydon, Septem- 
ber 11, 1871. 
