NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 93 



ordinary size, most of them considerably below, and some only about 

 half what they ought to be. It can scarcely be that the larvte were 

 starved, as although some of the trees were fairly well stripped, 

 there was still sufficient foliage on all the trees I beat to have fed up all 

 the larvae on them and a good many more. I may add that all the 

 II. marginaria I have bred or seen are melanic and so are also most 

 of the P. pcdaria. — -Geo. T. Porritt; Elm Lea, Ualton, Huddersfield, 

 March 12th, 1920. 



Caccecia unifasciana, Dup. — Mr. Sheldon's article on the larva 

 of this species has helped to solve a little problem that has puzzled 

 me for years, viz. how and where does it feed up in the spring ? 

 He quotes Spuler to the effect that it then feeds partly on 2vithered 

 leaves. I think Spuler is quite right, because although the imago is 

 often excessively abundant one never or "hardly ever" finds the 

 larva. I certainly have bred three or four from pupse in spun- 

 together privet leaves, but excepting on one occasion a search for the 

 larva in the spring has always proved futile. Early in April, 1894, 

 when examining one of those birds'-nest-like formations on a horn- 

 beam tree in the forest at Woodford, I noticed a number of small 

 larviB amongst the accumulated dead leaves, etc., in the dense mass 

 of twigs ; thinking they might be P. glaucinalis, which has often 

 been found in similar formations on birch trees, I brought it home 

 and placed it in a cardboard hat-box. Looking in the box a fortnight 

 later I noticed the larvae still amongst the rubbish but they did not 

 appear to have increased in size. tJpon looking in again in June I 

 was astonished at the sight of six unifasciana, and others emerged to 

 the number of thirty-one all told. Now if these larva? fed at all after 

 I brought them home they must have fed on the dead leaves amongst 

 the twigs because there was nothing else for them to eat ! Perhaps 

 if we searched amongst the dead leaves we might find them more 

 commonly. On the other hand, they may be strictly nocturnal, 

 retiring to the dead leaves at dawn as Mr. Sheldon's appear to have 

 done. I alluded to the matter in ' Entom.,' vol. xxxv, p. 130. In 

 ' Stainton's Manual ' privet is given as the food-plant, and to this I 

 find I have added " whitethorn," doubtless with good reason, but I 

 cannot remember when this pabulum was added. I have seen it 

 flying in great numbers at dusk over whitethorn where there was 

 certainly no privet growing near. — -A. Thurnall ; Wanstead, Essex, 

 March 8th, 1920. 



Peronea rufana Does Hibernate in the Imago Stage.— In 

 the ' Entomologist ' for 1919, p. 172, I question whether this species 

 hibernates as an imago, and state that " so far as I am aware no one 

 has seen a specimen after hibernation." Clearly I had overlooked a 

 communication to this magazine by Mr. E. C. Whittle, vol. lii, p. 54, 

 in which he observes that he obtained imagines of this species in the 

 spring of 1918 at Camghouran. Since the publication of my paper 

 I have heard from two correspondents, Mr. J. Gardiner, of Hartlepool, 

 and Mr. T. Ashton Lofthouse, of Middlesbrough. Both these gentle- 

 men inform me they have observed P. rufana after hibernation. 

 Mr. Lofthouse says : " I have a specimen, apparently a male, which 

 was taken by myself on March 30th, 1907." Mr. Gardiner writes: 



