THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 247 



moths (Macroglossa Stellatarnra) chased up and down stone 

 walls, banks, or cliffs, but particularly stone walls near the 

 sea; dozens of specimens might frequently be seen so doing, 

 and in positions far removed from any flowers. [A number 

 of interesting instances of this singular habit have been given 

 in the ' Entomologist,' and one by Mr. Guyon in which tire 

 insect performed the same feat in a papered room, examining 

 the representations of flowers.] Mr. Smith mentioned that 

 he had had sent to him from the Isle of Wight some clay 

 nests extracted from a wall, which eventually produced hy- 

 menopterous insects, but which were said by the sender to 

 be formed by the humming-bird-hawk. It seemed probable 

 that his correspondent had noticed the moths performing in 

 the manner described by Mr. M'Lachlan in the neighbour- 

 hood of the nests, and had thence erroneously inferred that 

 the nests were the workmanship of the moths. 



Mr. Eaton mentioned that he had, during the past season, 

 found near Lyndhurst a hornet's nest in a sandy bank where 

 no wood was near. The colony was a strong one, and the 

 nest so deeply imbedded in the bank that he had been 

 unable to take it. 



Mr. M'Lachlan read the following note from Mr. Double- 

 day on the subject of Liparis dispar, introduced by Mr. 

 Westwood at the previous Meeting : — "I do not know of any 

 locality in Britain where it occurs in a state of nature, and I 

 am strongl}' of opinion that it has only been found in the 

 fens round Yaxley ; when I was there in 1839 the larvae 

 swarmed on the gale and dwarf sallows. English was there 

 in 1846, and he lound the larvae pretty common, but not so 

 abundant as they were in 1839. Haworth simply says, ' In 

 salicetis, rarissime.' I believe all the specimens which were 

 placed in the old collections were continental, or reared from 

 eggs brought from the Continent, as they were very different 

 from the fen specimens, and just like those found in France ; 

 and I think most of those now bred in this country are of 

 continental origin. I once collected a great quantity of the 

 pupae in Paris, and brought them home to Epping. The fol- 

 lowing spring I turned out thousands of larvae, but they did 

 not establish themselves, although I saw plenty of the moths 

 in one field in August. In 1846 I obtained an immense 

 quantity of eggs from moths bred from larvae brought from 



