THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Vou. XIT.] DECEMBER, 1879. [No. 199. 
SER aS Te Bea 
By Epwarp A. Frrcg, F.L.S. 
BeroreE the recollection of entomological experience during 
the past extraordinary season passes away, it is well perhaps that 
a few notes should be preserved. 
A winter of exceptional severity was followed by a sunless and 
chilly spring, and then by a summer and early autumn remarkable 
for excess of rain and deficiency of heat. The year was 
altogether persistently wet, sunless, and ungenial. The effects 
of such a season on insect-life have naturally been very marked. 
Statisticians tell us that we must go back as far as the year 1816 
for a similar season, while others can only compare it with the 
records of 1764. A later year, 1860, which is in the memory of 
most of us, was peculiarly devoid of summer weather, though by 
no means so abnormal as 1879. It serves better, however, for 
comparison in entomological matters. The preceding winter of 
1859—60 was protracted though not very severe, thus differing 
from that of 1878—9 ; still we find Pieris napi, Phigalia pilosaria, 
Biston hirtaria, &c., recorded as captured at large in January. 
The winter of 1860—61 was, however, exceptionally severe, and 
the summers of 1858 and 1859 had been exceptionally hot; the 
records of British captures of many European species relate to 
those years. The summer then of 1860 was a greater contrast 
to its predecessors than our late one. Comparing the two years, 
1860 and 1879, entomologically, there is much in common. In 
the ‘Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer’ (vols. 8 and 9), and 
‘ Zoologist’’ (vols. 18 and 19), are constant notes on late appear- 
ances, and towards the end of the season “the opinion that 
the year had been generally unprofitable was stoutly combated 
by several correspondents. Large takes of larvee were especially 
instanced; various Hymenoptera, as wasps, Bombi, &c., are 
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