146 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
always a lot of them flying about the potato locker, which is on 
deck. There are so many of them that they get shut in, and live on 
such nourishment as they can extract from the potatoes; when they 
arrive in dock in England they escape. Last summer we had two 
all the way over that never left the ship until we arrived at Tilbury, 
and I saw them fly away there.’’’ Possibly this may account for the 
extreme scarcity of this species in Ireland—as it may be remembered 
the only specimen known to have occurred in that country was one 
captured by Major Chavasse in Co. Cork in October, 1916, and 
recorded by me in the ‘ Entomologist,’ vol. xlix, p. 285; otherwise it 
might be supposed that the western coast of Ireland would be ,the 
most accessible landing place for these insects after their flight across 
the Atlantic had they migrated without assistance. In any case the 
above interesting communication throws a new light on this subject, 
and my thanks are due to Mr. Pearson for very kindly bringing it to 
my notice.—F. W. Fronawk; May, 1921. 
CELERIO EUPHORBIZ MAURETANICA, STGR., IN Porto Santo.—This 
fine sphingid is not uncommon in the Island of Madeira, where I 
found the larve in 1879. In January of the present year I observed 
a larva on narrow-leafed spurge in Porto Santo, north of Villa 
Baleira. This is, I think, the first record of a sphingid from that 
island. The larva was about 35 mm. long; true legs black, claspers 
red; caudal horn black, reddish at base; lateral pale yellow stripe 
with red spot on each segment; dorsal yellow line narrow and 
interrupted ; sublateral large spots transversely elongate, black, with 
large white pupil; broad sublateral band of yellow dots, its upper 
edge level with the white pupils of the spots; head dark red. 
According to Rebel’s recent (1917) revised list, there are only four 
Madeira sphingide in addition to the above—C. livornica, Esp., 
Herse convolvult, i., Acherontia atropos, L., and Macroglossa stella- 
tarum, L. The Azores have only A. atropos, H. convolvuli, D. neria 
and M. stellatarwm. There are no local subspecies, and it is not 
unlikely that some of the species at least have been introduced by » 
man. The poverty of these islands in the larger Lepidoptera is also 
shown by the absence of Arctiide in the Azores, while Madeira has 
only the wide-spread Deiopera pulchella, L. There are no Hesperiidee 
in Madeira or the Azores so far as known.—T. D. A, CocKERELL. 
THE Harty Season.—We have just passed through a remarkably 
mild winter with scarcely any frost. But it is a curious fact that on 
December 11th and 12th we had the heaviest fall of snow that’ has 
occurred during the thirty-six years I have lived here. It was nearly 
calm at the time and the snow came down straight, and covered the 
ground evenly to the depth of nearly a foot. On the 13th a rapid 
thaw set in and in less than twenty-four hours it had all disappeared. 
Since then the weather has been simply wonderful, and for the past 
month, day after day, the sky has been cloudless, with wind varying 
between S.E. and N.E., fresh at times and rather keen, but with the 
temperature generally well above the normal. There has been no 
rain to speak of since November and the country is getting very dry. 
I noticed white-thorn bursting into leaf as early as January 28th, 
and at the present time the woods and hedges are as forward as they 
