THE PAST YEAR. 285 
This species has, however, always been remarkable for the 
uncertainty of its appearance; in some years even for its total 
absence in localities where it had previously been abundant. The 
greater part of our June specimens were doubtless immigrants, 
and the summer and autumn specimens their progeny. I found 
the larvee commonly early in August, in their curious spider-like 
webs, on Carduus arvensis, but much more generally on those 
isolated thistles amongst the corn which this year have been 
so abundant. On the Continent almost every species of thistle 
and even the common nettle (Urtica dioica), have afforded food 
for the numerous larve. My first bred specimen pupated on 
August 9th, and emerged on 14th. I lost my three late pupe by 
introducing T’hamnotrizon cinereus into the cage, who soon devoured 
them. This was not my only loss through these insectivorous 
practices, for I collected some thirty or forty larvee of Stratiomys, 
which have been unusually common this year, and all of them 
became the prey of two specimens of Gammarus pulea, which had 
inadvertently been introduced into the aquarium. I had hoped 
to have bred the pretty chalcideous Smicra, which is parasitic on 
these curious aquatic larve. Although these larve were so 
common I only saw one imago, and that was a specimen of 
Stratiomys furcata, which I captured on a wild parsnip bloom on 
August 15th. 
In many of the numerous notes on the extraordinary 
abundance of P. cardut, it has been remarked how Plusia gamma 
appeared to accompany it in its migrations. This has been 
equally observable throughout Britain, where both species occurred 
on our coasts simultaneously ; although the imagos of P. gamma 
have occurred in the greatest profusion we have but few records 
of the larve in these islands. There is one notable exception 
(Entom. xii, 222). It is far otherwise on the Continent, for 
thence, where this larva is by no means an unknown destructive, 
we have deplorable news of its serious depredations amongst 
clover and lucerne, and particularly flax and peas. I have found 
imagos of P. gamma from January to December; indeed it is a 
question in which state this species hybernates, and larve of 
Pyrameis carduwi have been found in this country as late as 
October (Entom. xi., 19) ; both species can indeed withstand great 
climatic changes. Some few other species of Lepidoptera have 
been unusually common; here, as in many other localities, 
