THE PAST YEAR. 287 
borders of this county where Mania maura occurs in August by 
hundreds ; flying over the water at the head of the mill in the 
evening, with its peculiar bat-like flight, and resting within the 
mill by day. Ihave seen them thus, packed on one another in 
immense numbers. ‘This year not one has been seen. On 
the weather-boarding of this same mill I have usually seen and 
disturbed, in order to witness moth-hawking in its glory by 
the numerous swifts and swallows, every morning some eight 
or ten Catocala nupta; this year but two have been seen. 
Leaving the Lepidoptera, one or two notes on experience 
of this miserable season amongst the more neglected orders may 
be instructive. Coleopterists, when industrious, regardless of 
weather, do not appear to complain of want of success. In an 
order where life-histories and habits are particularly variable this 
might be expected. With me but two extraordinary occurrences 
in this order have been noticed; these were the excessive abundance 
of Anchomenus dorsalis and of Orchestes ali. The foliage of most 
of the elm trees here appeared to be completely scorched owing 
to the ravages of the Orchestes larve ; it was remarked generally. 
With the more sun-loving Hymenoptera the experience is just 
the opposite; this year follows two or three very bad ones, but in 
1879 many species and even genera have been quite unnoticed. 
Aculeata generally have found seasons sadly out of joint; certain 
Bombi have been scarce, and I have seen but two wasps, both 
Vespa germanica. Hymenopterous galls have been generally 
scarce, more especially the willow and sallow sawfly (Nematus) 
species. Other sawflies have varied: to take two well-known 
garden species as examples; the larve of Nematus ribesi (the 
gooseberry grub) have been exceedingly destructive to currant and 
gooseberry bushes, as they were in 1860, while the cherry- 
and pear-loving larve of Hriocampa (Selandria) adumbrata have 
hardly made a sign, though usually so abundant. Of these two 
pests my experience is that H. adwmbrata always spins its winter 
cocoon much deeper in the ground than N. ribeswt; neither 
change to pupe till the spring. The Cynipid galls have all 
been remarkably late in appearance. ‘The first gall I found was 
that of Andricus curvator on June 2nd; the common oak-currant 
galls of S. baccarum were not noticed till 11th June, and the first 
Spathegaster bred on June 16th. In 1878 these galls were 
common on May lst, and the Cynips occurred generally by 
