CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 



73 



tussocks of grass or lumps of moss or lichen a brown web would be 

 noticed, and under this, embedded in the moss, &c., was the cocoon. 

 Of these cocoous I found about fifty or sixty before the middle of 

 October, but I spent very little time looking for them, and no doubt 

 hundreds might have been found by careful searching in suitable 

 places. No young or newly hatched larvte were observed in the 

 autumn of 1902. On the other hand, in the autumn of 1901 I saw 

 no full-grown or year-old larvae, but I did see a good many young 

 ones, about a month or two old. These observations point to the 

 species appearing only biennially and not every year. The insect in 

 this cold country appears to spend quite fourteen months in the larva 

 state. 



The extreme lateness of insects in 1902 was very noticeable. 

 Larentia ccssiata, L. didymata, and Cidaria populata were all observed 

 from Sept. 20th to 27th, and not in bad condition either. A female 

 specimen of L. casiata was taken, in fair condition, on Oct. 9th. 

 Cmionympha davus was also very late in 1902, while in Sutherland- 

 shire, during August up to the 24th of that month, I noticed three or 

 four in good condition every day, and on the 19th I took a pair in cop. ■ 



Returning again to my collecting in Koss-shire on the Carron 

 water. One specimen of Crymodes exulis was taken at sugar on Aug. 

 8th ; the specimen is in good condition ; it resembles the form known 

 as assimilis, Doubl., that I have seen from the Rannoch district, and is 

 quite different, especially in its smaller size, from the Shetland form. 

 I am not aware of this species having been recorded from Ross-shire 

 before. 



Sugaring at this time (beginning of August) was not at all success- 

 ful, and only produced a few specimens of Xylophasia rurea, X. viuno- 

 fflypha, Apamea (jemina, Hadena adiistu, Xoctiia rubl, N. festiva, &c. The 

 weather was cold, wet, and windy.— W. M. Christy ; Watergate, Ems- 

 worth, Hants. 



Notes from Wales. — Among other captures in this district during 

 1902 I took about twenty-five larvae of Dasychira fascelina. They all 

 pupated, and I had the pleasure of seeing sixteen emerge between July 

 18th and 30th. This insect appears in great profusion here some 

 years, though its numbers vary greatly. Is it generally becoming 

 scarcer ? for I seldom see accounts of its capture, and I think it was 

 not mentioned in the ' Entomologist ' last year. Another insect which 

 is fairly regular in its appearance here is Clmrucampa porcellus. On 

 Oct. 4th, last year, I took a newly emerged specimen of Gmpta 

 c-album in some woods near here. Is not this a rather late appearance 

 for this species ? My last record of the same insect here is Sept. 1st, 

 1897, when a friend of mine and myself took a pair within five yards 

 of each other, in the same clearing as my last capture. — Thos, H. 

 Court; Llandudno College, Llandudno, Feb. 9th, 1903. 



Collecting in the New Forest.— The summer (if such it may be 

 called) of 1902 will long be remembered by entomologists as one of the 

 most unsatisfactory and unproductive seasons in their experience. But 

 notwithstanding the prevailing depression there are, no doubt, bright 

 spots to be looked back to, and I, for one, have very pleasant recollec- 



ENTOM. — MARCH, 1903. G 



