362 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



largest at the bottom of the box, evidently on the eve of pupa- 

 tion. I transferred them to a chip-box, half filled with earth, 

 upon the surface of which I had scattered a few bits of thin 

 paper ; and in this box they changed to pupae, making a flimsj'' 

 cocoon of silk and fragments of earth, roofed in with paper. 



I had previously given the finest of my larvae to Mr, G. Baker, 

 of Burton-on-Trent, by whom it was preserved for the collection 

 of my friend Dr. Mason. The other larvae pupated in course of 

 time, and I am now (Sept. 1st) waiting to see whether they will 

 emerge this month, or remain in pupa till next spring. 



I find, on consulting the 'Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' 

 vol. xiii. p. 185, that the late Mr, Buckler has written an 

 admirable account of the larval state of this insect, which I 

 hope will eventually be embodied in one of the Kay Society's 

 volumes, I observe, however, that Mr. Buckler says : — " I find 

 nothing to show that it has more than one brood in the year, or 

 more than one food-plant, viz., privet, for the larva." Both 

 these statements must obviously now be modified. 



The Soho, Burton-on-Trent, September, 1887. 



THE HESSIAN FLY. 

 By Eleanor A. Ormerod, F.E.S. 



Reports from correspondents acquainted with the attack of 

 the Hessian fly show its presence now in an almost continuous 

 line along the northern and eastern coast from Cromarty on the 

 Moray Firth in Scotland down to Kent. 



The most northerly locality from which I have at present 

 received specimens of puparia is from the parish of Urquhart, 

 in Morayshire. Further north than this I am not aware of it 

 having reached, and on the 10th inst. information was sent me 

 by Mr. George Brown, of Watten Mains, Caithness, a well 

 pi'actised entomological observer, that he had " been on the out- 

 look, b^.it had never come across anything bearing the slightest 

 resemblance io attack from these pests ; " and, so far as he could 

 learn, Caithness was as 3'et free from a visitation of them. 



The amount of presence varies very much. In the locality 

 above mentioned (that is, the district from xiberdeeu to Cromarty), 



