282 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
spoken of as conspicuous by their absence, but the Coleoptera 
and Hemiptera do not seem to have suffered so much as the more 
sun-loving orders. As this year (1879) we have conspicuous 
exceptions to the general absence of insect life by the unwonted 
abundance of Pyrameis cardui and Plusia gamma, and a few other 
species, so in 1860; for in that year many specimens of Deilephila 
livornica were captured in the spring, and a few Cherocampa 
celerio in the autumn. Specimens of both have also been taken 
this year. Both then, as now, the abnormal absence or presence 
of various species, and their early or late appearances, were 
abundantly remarked upon, but in very few, if any, instances 
was a cause looked for. This is to be regretted, though we 
quite allow there are great difficulties attending the enquiry. 
The past season has probably been the most disastrous 
on record in these islands. Crops of all descriptions are 
exceptionally poor and unmatured; in many cases they have 
altogether failed to ripen. As regards honey “ the results are 
absolutely nil, and where the bees have not been artifically 
fed they were last autumn and end of summer already perishing 
by thousands of starvation. Not one hive in fifty can possibly 
survive the winter if left to subsist on the honey collected during 
the past sunless summer. A summer entirely without parallel 
in apiarian annals.” If we add to this gloomy state of affairs 
under domestication the immense nest-building difficulties of 
certain Hymenoptera in such a season, we can well imagine 
how severely all genera of bees and wasps have suffered. 
Of late appearances in Lepidoptera it is useless to multiply 
instances; they have been abundantly referred to in the pages of 
the ‘ Entomologist’: suffice it to say that here the first Pieris 
rap@ noticed was on May 5th, and the first P. brassice not 
till June 18th. All early summer species were about a month 
later ; this was not only the case with insects, but the phenological 
observations collected by the Meteorological Society show it to 
have been the case with the flowering of plants and the leafage 
of trees. The pages of the ‘ Zoologist’ and ‘ Field * confirm it 
more clearly by the records of the arrival of our migratory 
birds. Fish likewise have been affected, for many species have 
been altogether abnormal in their movements. The season was 
altogether fully a month late; the well-known St. Mark’s fly 
(Bibio Marci), is particularly regular and short-lived in its 
