180 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



upon a table in my room that night, and I was agreeably surprised 

 at finding that my reeds were tenanted by some beautiful larvae, 

 of which the following description was taken some weeks later 

 on: — Larvffi two inches in length, stout in proportion; the head 

 is globular and projected in crawling; the body is cylindrical, 

 the skin smooth and glossy ; after retiring to its winter rest 

 becomes wrinkled and puckered ; the body is yellowish gray, 

 beautifully tinged with a rosy hue which is very perceptible in 

 the interstices of the segments where the skin is folded ; the 

 dorsal line white, bordered with dark green ; subdorsal line 

 slender and whitish ; a pale line along the spiracles, which are 

 black, with a grey centre. The head brown, with darker markings 

 down the face. These larvae fed only by night on the leaves of 

 the reed, retiring during the day in the hollow stem of the same. 

 This was during the months of August and September. At the 

 beginning of October the larvae finally settled down tvithin the 

 reeds, spinning some silken threads to keep themselves secure. 

 Soon after retirement the colour of the skin began to fade, till 

 it finally became of a pale dingy yellow ; it remained in this 

 condition till the following May. The larva, if disturbed during 

 this period, is very lively, crawling quickly out of sight if shaken 

 from its resting-place. I observed little diminution in the size of 

 the larva during its long abstinence. In the middle of May they 

 changed to pupae of a chestnut-brown colour, and the moth 

 appeared about four weeks later on. The last came out on the 

 11th of July (present month).— J. Humble Rolfe ; July, 1881. 



Extraordinary abundance of TRiPHiENA pronuba. — During 

 a short visit in the Isle of Wight, at the end of last month, 

 I observed Triplicena pronuba everywhere I went in the most 

 extraordinary abundance. In Daishe's Hotel, Shanklin, they 

 were swept from the hall and passages each morning by scores, 

 where they had been attracted by light. As the train passed 

 through the country they rose in numbers from the herbage by 

 the railway side. While walking from Ventnor to Sandrock 

 Hotel, by the cliffs, they were flying in abundance during the hot 

 sunshine.— John T. Carrington ; Royal Aquarium, July, 1881. 



Lepidoptera at Lyndhurst. — At the end of last month I 

 went to Lyndhurst for a week's collecting. At sugar there was 

 not a great variety of insects, but those that did occur were 



