240 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



appeared to keep the extremity of the abdomen at the surface of the 

 water, and produced a lot of air-bubbles. One I saw making great 

 efforts to climb up the side of a vessel in which it was confined ; but as 

 it continually slipped back, I guided it with the point of a pencil to 

 a stick which was fixed in the middle of the basin. It immediately 

 commenced to clunb, went to the top of the stick, and apparently 

 would have gone higher if it could. In the case of the one I watched, 

 a distinct sound was produced when the thorax split. One day I tried 

 to feed a dragonfly ; but as it would not take the flies, 1 took it up 

 carefully and put the fly to its mouth, when it at once began to feed 

 greedily, and ate three, one after the other. It appeared to have quite 

 matured its colours, but I am afraid feeding it made it too vigorous, 

 for it afterwards terminated the experiment by contriving to make its 

 escape. — R. A. R. Priske ; 06, Chaucer Road, Acton, W. 



Vitality of Blaps mortisaga, Linn. — I received, on July 21st last, 

 a living specimen of this beetle, which had been found in a box 

 belonging to a young lady, who returned to Scotland from Egypt three 

 months previously. The position in which the beetle was found con- 

 vinced her that it had been packed up in Egypt. It had, in that 

 event, subsisted for more than three months without sustenance or 

 air, Blaps is a common Egyptian genus, and mortimga is found as far 

 east as the Caucasus. — Henry H. Brown ; Cupar-Fife. 



Saturnia carpini on Lythrum salicaria. — On Aug. 14th I found a 

 large larva of S. carpini in the New Forest, at rest in the early morning 

 on L. salicaria, the purple loosestrife. The spray was plucked, and the 

 larva carried home upon it. Afterwards it fed readily on the foliage 

 of this plant, which, I believe, is not one of its usual food-plants. On 

 this large specimen, no doubt a female, the tubercles were orange in 

 colour. On a smaller one, found the same day, and M'hich at once 

 commenced to spin up, the tubercles were pink. This second is no 

 doubt a male. Was the difference in colour of tubercles due to sex or 

 age, or chance variation? — W. J. Lucas. 



British Orthoptera. — Could any of our readers kindly supply lists 

 of the Orthoptera of Orkney, Shetland, Hebrides, Scilly, or any other 

 outlying, or less known parts of the British Isles ? — W. J. Lucas ; 

 28, Knight's Park, Kingston-on-Thames. 



Limenitis CAMILLA ab. — I took a black variety of L. Camilla near 

 Barbigin, Fontainebleau, on August 12th last. The specimen is a 

 female. — Walter Dannatt ; Donniugton, 75, Vanbrugh Park, Black- 

 heath, S.E. 



Variety of Gonepteryx rhamni. — Mr. Lucas sends a beautifully 

 coloured drawing of Gotiepteryx rhamni with the fore wings clouded 

 with orange as in cleopatra. Concerning this he writes: — "It was 

 reared from one of several larv^ taken in tke New Forest by Mr. Weir, 

 on June 26th last. To all intents and purposes this specimen is clearly 

 Cleopatra, but all the other examples bred with it were normal. I 

 attribute the variation to the fact that the larvae were, till July 11th, 

 kept in an extremely hot sbed. On the date last mentioned they were 



