NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 167 



trustworthy friends tells me that last Whit-Monday he had taken 

 shelter from rain in a quarry; and while there observed these 

 larvsB dropping over a ledge of rock into a hole beneath. Such 

 were the immense numbers, that the hole from which they could 

 not extricate themselves had the appearance of a seething 

 cauldron of living creatures. No doubt a great deal of exaggera- 

 tion has gone forth through the newspapers and otherwise, but, 

 nevertheless, the phenomenon is really very extraordinary in its 

 character. During the last two years I have had a country 

 house in the infected district, so that I have had many oppor- 

 tunities of observing the habits of C. graminis, had they been 

 there in unusual numbers. I may safely say I did not see two 

 dozen si^ecimens during the two seasons. These came to my 

 light, which I had placed to attract insects. I find that the 

 usual time of flight for this species is from seven to eight o'clock 

 in the morning, when entomologists are usually enjoying their 

 well-earned repose, after the night's work." The late Mr. Edward 

 Newman, in his ' History of British Moths,' at page 293, says of 

 Charceas graminis : — " The caterpillar has always been notorious 

 for the injuries it causes in grass lands. Linnaeus emphatically 

 says, ' This is the most destructive of our Swedish caterpillars, 

 laying waste our meadows and annihilating the crop of hay.' In 

 the years 1741 and 1778 its ravages were so great as to amount 



to a national calamity Some authors have asserted 



that it spares the species of the genus Alopecurus, and others 

 those of the genus Trifolium, but these assertions are not pub- 

 lished on authority sufficiently reliable." It would be an in- 

 teresting addition to our knowledge of Economic Entomology if 

 Mr. Hodgkinson and other observers would find out what plants 

 are most affected by these larvae. At p. 200 of vol. i. of the 

 * Entomological Magazine,' Mr. George Wailes, writing in 1832, 

 says of the damage done by this species of larvae that " some 

 years ago (in 1824 I believe), during the spring and early summer 

 the herbage of a large portion of the level part of Skiddaw, . . . 



comprising at least fifty acres was observed, even from 



the town of Keswick, to assume a dry and parched api^earance ; 

 and so marked was the line that the progress made by the larvae 

 down the mountain could be distinctly noted." Mr. Wailes also 

 refers to the habits of the imagines flying about eight o'clock in 

 the morning, giving a graphic account of the abundance of the 

 moths.— J T. C.J 



