154 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



its publication but for Mr. Dunning's courtesy in sending rae 

 a copy. 



Stripped of a certain amount oi persiflage, which is likely 

 to induce an erroneous estimation of the author's attainments, 

 as well as an equally erroneous impression that the author 

 distrusts his own case, the paper is one of sterling merit, of 

 sound and solid teaching (which is nowhere else to be found 

 in a collected form), on the genus Acentropus. I will cite, in 

 support of this assertion, a brilliant but perfectly fair passage 

 on the life-history of Acentropus : — 



" Let us now bring together, as a connected narrative, the 

 scattered observations on the habits of Acentropus. 



" Olivier and Latreille say nothing about its mode of life, 

 but, from its having been described as a Phryganea, we may 

 infer that it was found in the neighbourhood of water. 

 * Found on willows,' near a canal, was Stephens' account ; 

 ' in an osier bed,' was Brown's first report. Kolenati, how- 

 ever, in 1846, discovered that the imago affected certain 

 species of Potamogeton, and suspected that the pond-weeds 

 were the food-plant of the larva. Informed by Haliday of 

 Kolenati's observations. Brown, who in 1855 and 1856 cap- 

 tured the moth flying over the river Trent, was enabled to find 

 pupae in 1857, and in the following year to obtain both larvae 

 and pupse. 



" Previously to this, Curtis and Dale had found, at Glan- 

 ville's Wootton, what they supposed to be the eggs of 

 Acentropus : they were exhibited at the meeting of this 

 Society on the 4th of September, 1854, and are described 

 in the Proceedings as ' a large mass of white and very elon- 

 gated eggs.' The oviposition was not actually seen, but the 

 eggs were found at a spot where Acentropus abounded, and 

 near a female specimen, which was captured, and exhibited* 

 at the same meeting ; and there cannot, I think, be any 

 reasonable doubt that they were really the eggs of Acentropus. 

 I suppose these eggs have gone to the Antipodes with the 

 rest of Curtis's collection ; but Hagen saw them, and has 

 described them as ' a number of white roundish eggs, lain 

 thickly together on a Potamogeton leaf.' There is, however, 

 a discrepancy between the two accounts as to the shape of 

 the eggs. Tn 1861 Knaggs had some eggs laid on his 

 setting-boards, by specimens captured at Hampstead : he 



