THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 59 



you are careful to affix the stamps for postage and direction 

 on an ordinary luggage-label (not adhesive), which may then 

 be securely tied to the box with a piece of" twine. I have 

 frequently made use of this plan, and on no occasion have 

 the postal authorities been tempted to impress a stamp on 

 the box, which consequently entirely escapes injury. — 

 Arthur W. Owen ; 33, Liverpool Street, Dover, March 14, 

 1872. 



I should suppose Mr. Doncaster was perfectly familiar 

 with Cooke's postal-boxes. We have all been using them a 

 long time, but find they do not always resist the Herculean 

 powers at the post office. 



Larva of Geometra papilionaria. — In answer to Mr. 

 Mathew I may observe that I fancy this larva is not easy to 

 obtain at any time. I have beaten for it in vain, both in 

 autumn and spring, in woods where the imago occurs. The 

 females I have noticed occasionally flying amongst the higher 

 boughs of birches, and am inclined to think that they deposit 

 their eggs at some elevalion ; and as the larvge feed only a 

 short time in the autumn, I suppose they do not descend 

 before they hybernate, and would therefore not be easily 

 obtained, unless they were brought lower by being shaken 

 down in windy weather. Some collectors, so it is said, have 

 captured these larvae on oak in the spring. — J. R. S. 

 Clifford; 59, Robert Street, Chelsea, S.W., March 4, 

 1872. 



Dipterous Larva in the mines of Sesia Tipnliformis. — I 

 enclose some Dipterous larvae, about which I am in doubt. 

 They were inhabiting the empty mines of S. Tipnliformis in 

 living wood. From the examination of a number of currant 

 branches, 1 have found larvae of that moth of two different 

 sizes, one of the smaller of which I enclose ; and this seems 

 to favour the supposition that the species passes two seasons 

 in the larval condition, as I have suggested in the ' Entomo- 

 logist.' It seems only in rare instances that it causes the 

 death of the bushes. I have some under my observation that 

 have borne broods of the species for fifteen or twenty years. 

 —Id. 



I incline to think the Dipterous larvae are those of a 

 Cecidomyia ; but I cannot think what business they have in 

 the galleries of a Sesia. 



