ABUNDANCE OF PLUSIA GAMMA AND VANESSA CARDUI. 159 
as a consequence he had many more insects on his trees than I 
did. It was by no means unusual to see on some of these larger 
patches over 200 moths feasting at one time. Still, although my 
patches of bait were smaller, and consequently fewer moths. on 
each tree, my captures of the better species were about equal to 
his, save in one species, viz., Xylophasia hepatica. Of this insect 
Mr. Porritt took possibly two dozen, whilst I only secured some 
three or four specimens. It almost appeared as if the vast mob 
of moths frightened away some of the more timid and flighty 
species. During our eight nights’ sugaring we must have seen 
over 20,000 moths. I never in all my experience saw anything 
to equal the numbers; it was indeed a sight to recollect. 
Amongst the Deltoids only four species were observed, and of 
the Pyralide thirteen species were obtained, the best thing being 
Agrotera nemoralis, now rare; only a single specimen occurred, 
where in former years I have taken readily several dozen each 
day. Botys lancealis, too, was sparingly taken by beating, and 
one specimen came to sugar. Hnnychia octomaculalis occurred 
freely. We saw a few only of the commoner Crambites, and the 
Tortrices seemed unusually scarce; the oniy common thing was 
Roxana arcuana, and that was in thousands. 
Thus, during our ten-day stay at Hailsham, we captured or 
observed 160 species of Macro-Lepidoptera, that is, to end of 
Pyralide ; and, considering time of year, this is truly a good 
number. Although we failed to turn up any specially rare insect, 
and missed a few we had anticipated, yet, as an outing, it was a 
great success and thoroughly enjoyable. 
Greenwich, June 20th, 1892. 
‘ON THE RECENT ABUNDANCE OF PLUSIA GAMMA 
AND VANESSA CARDUI. 
By Rosert Apxin, F.E.S. 
Durine the past few weeks the neighbourhood of London has 
been visited by one of those remarkably sudden appearances of 
Plusia gamma that are from time to time observed. Up to 24th 
May I had not noticed a single example of the species, but on 
going into my garden at dusk on that evening, I found them 
literally swarming; they were arriving in numbers, whence no 
one could tell, dashing wildly about, or hovering over the wall- 
flowers for a moment, and disappearing in the twilight equally 
suddenly, but only to be replaced by others. Again, after dark, 
I spent some time in watching them by the light of a lantern, 
and found them coming and going just as before; the evening 
