NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 277 



specimen, I am now making this tardy record. Although I have 

 looked out for a second specimen, none has yet come to hand. The 

 district abounds in well-grown poplars. — A. E. Burras ; 3, Connaught 

 Eoad, N. End, Portsmouth. 



HiPPOTION CELERIO AND OTHER LePIDOPTERA IN THE MaIDSTONE 



Museum. — By the courtesy of the x\ssistant Curator I was shown a 

 drawer of lepidoptera containing some interesting examples of the 

 rarer Kent lepidoptera when I paid a visit to the beautiful Maid- 

 stone Museum this month. The neighbourhood does not appear to 

 have been worked systematically by local collectors of recent years, 

 but from the few opportunities I had to make acquaintance with the 

 surrounding country I should think it affords a rich field for explora- 

 tion. The " County Collection " is mostly made up of old captures 

 — some in a very dilapidated condition. Except in a few instances 

 the labels in this cabinet are printed " Kent " only. But there are 

 two obviously hibernated examples of Euvmiessa antiopa taken at 

 Maidstone in February, 1889. In the special drawer I found a third 

 of more recent capture, which is, however, under suspicion as an 

 escape. Other contents are a small series of Leptosia sinapis labelled 

 "Wateringbury, R. H. Fremlin, 1857," and a pair of Melitcea athalia, 

 June, 1907, taken by Mr. Best. The rarer Heterocora are represented 

 by a fine series of Manduca atropos and Agrius convolvuli from the 

 Maidstone district, and two very fine Hipp)otion celerio (neither, I 

 believe, recorded), one taken quite close to the Museum by Mr. 

 Webb on November 4th, 1903, the other at Teston by Mr. Page on 

 October 6th, 1913. There is also a short series of bred JEgeria 

 andrencBformis with larva and pupa shown in sitil in a section of 

 Viburnum lantana. — H. Rowland-Brown ; October 10th, 1919. 



Scarcity op Aglais urtic^. — It is very curious to note the 

 scarcity of this common butterfly in many of its southern haunts 

 this season, especially when the abundance of hibernated individuals 

 is remembered, as recorded in notes of mine and otlier observers in 

 this magazine {antea, pp. 68, 89, 137). It has been conspicuous 

 only by its absence in our North Middlesex gardens this autumn ; 

 while Pyrameis atalanta, for the second year in succession, has been 

 entirely wanting from our own garden, where it swarmed in 1917, 

 and in thirty to forty years' observation it has seldom failed to visit 

 us in some numbers. Urtica either had not emerged in the Chilterns 

 in mid-August or was similarly scarce; while throughout September 

 I saw but single specimens, and was more than a fortnight at 

 Maidstone at the end of the month and beginning of October before 

 a single example appeared one sunny morning on the 6th in the 

 Brenchley Gardens. The blizzard which swept the southern counties 

 on April 26th and 27th must have destroyed the gravid females 

 wholesale. I noticed very few webs of larvaB either in Bucks., 

 Middlesex, Herts., or Gloucestershire ; and it is possible, of course, 

 that, as last year, a spell of wet and rather cold weather at the end 

 of August may have sent the emerging August imagines straight 

 into winter quarters. But, whatever the cause, whether victim of 

 climate {urtica is circumpolar and a hardy insect) or parasite, the 

 fact remains. The Small Tortoiseshell has been quite rare locally — 



