334 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Does Food produce Variation ? — In the remarks that Mr. 

 Butler makes touching Mr. White's paper (Entom.p. 173) he says, 

 " I do not admit Mr. White's statement that food does not 

 produce variation," and then instances Mr. Herbert Goss's 

 experiments in the rearing of Odoncstis ])otatoria. This year I 

 have reared a quantity of 0. potatoria, and, from my botanical 

 ignorance of the grasses they fed upon, I have given to them the 

 grass that was most handy — sometimes it came from Kent, 

 sometimes from Hampshire, more often from the London parks, 

 miles from where the larvae originally came from. In no single 

 instance have I succeeded in obtaining a departure from the 

 normal tj^pe either in size or colour. Having made in rearing of 

 larvffi the changing of food-plants a speciality, hoping thus to get 

 varieties, I am enabled to sj)eak with confidence on this subject. 

 If the food-plant be chemically treated, or the larvse be kept in 

 other than natural conditions, then variable forms and colours 

 may be expected, and dwarfs in size especially. This year I have 

 had feeding between three and four hundred lavvie of Arctia caja ; 

 some idea of their number may be inferred from the fact of their 

 devouring in ten hours a large cabbage and two lettuces. These 

 larvffi were the majority of them taken at Willesden, from off the 

 nettle and a bushy kind of shrub which the country people call 

 the " snow-berry." They were reared on dock, dandelion, plan- 

 tain, nettle, sallow, whitethorn, blackthorn, oak, and a host of 

 other food-plants far too numerous to mention. The food was 

 changed daily, and always differed from that of the previous day, yet 

 in no case as yet has even a noticeable variety come out. Some 

 months back, conversing with Mr. Bond on this subject, he 

 remarked that some years ago a friend and himself had about 

 five hundred larvae feeding on various food-plants, with the hope 

 of getting a variety, with the same results as myself. Thus far my 

 experience is conclusively in favour of the theory advanced by 

 Mr. White. — Thos. Humble Ralfe. 



An Entomological evening at the Eoyal Aquarium. — 

 After having been cut off from all intercourse with entomologists 

 for several months, it was a great pleasure to me to drop into the 

 Eoyal Aquarium, Westminster, on Monday evening last, Sep- 

 tember 5th, and meet so many entomological friends, and to 

 delight my eyes by looking on the beauties which had been 

 captured during the season, and were then exhibited in a 



