264 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



greatly obliged by being favoured with the names of any varieties 

 of wheat which may have been known with certainty to have been 

 infested by Cecidomyia destructor, and yet not to have been 

 seriously injured. 



Also the enormous prevalence of the two stem attacks caused 

 respectively by the corn sawfly, Ceplms pygmcBUs, and by the 

 dipterous fly, the Chlorops tceniopus, — attacks which far exceed in 

 amount any which have been brought under my notice as caused 

 by these insects, — give a hope tliat the climatal circumstances 

 which usually prevail here will have an effect in checking the 

 attack of the Cecidomyia destructor, as well as the above-named 

 crop pests, as we see that all three kinds have been exceptionally 

 thriving in the heat and drought, exceptional here. 



Whilst I write, information has arrived from Prof. F. M. 

 Webster, of Lafayette, Ind., U.S.A., that the much more severe 

 extent of drought there has (up to date) checked appearance of the 

 pest, and the record which is being taken of climatal effect will be 

 of much use. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES. CAPTURES, &c. 



Extraordinary abundance of Pieris rap^. — One noticeable 

 feature of the present season certainly has been the super- 

 abundance of Pieris rapa. In the larval condition these have, 

 been a source of great annoyance, both to the gardener and 

 agriculturist. One day early in the present month of August, a 

 friend of mine, whilst seated on the downs near Broadwater, a 

 village close to Worthing, happening to look up at the moment, 

 saw the air filled with what he at first took for thistle-down, but 

 which proved to be a large cloud of white butterflies {Pieris 

 rapce), of which there were scores upon scores. They have also 

 been seen settled in this neighbourhood upon various plants in 

 such numbers that handfuls might have been easily collected in a 

 few seconds. It is somewhat remarkable that in the Colias edusa 

 year of 1877, — of which, by the way, I have not seen a specimen 

 this year, — when the fields and gardens were teeming with this 

 favourite but capriciously-appearing butterfly, it would have been 

 difficult, at least so far as my own experience goes, to have taken 

 a dozen whites of either species throughout the day. — Joseph 

 Anderson, Jun. ; Chichester, August, 1887. 



