MACEO-LEPIDOPTERA OF THE BURGHCLERE DISTRICT. 33 



that scent is not, evidently, the only determining influence in 

 assemhHng, for the Kev. G. H. Raynor (Entom. xxv. 121) says 

 that " even during a stiff breeze I have seen males come up from 

 all quarters of the compass." This would imply that scent was 

 not the only lure, and tends towards proof that some other 

 influence was at work, as scent cannot travel against the wind, 

 and in all the assembling expeditions I have been on, the males 

 always came against the wind ; and when, in their eagerness, 

 the males overshot their mark and went past the female, they 

 lost the scent and flew up, soared away on the wind, dropped 

 close to earth again, and then, having regained the scent, came 

 sailing along. 



The fact, as stated by Mr. Arkle, that the report of a gun does 

 not disturb insects, would help out the fact that if Heterocera 

 can hear, it must be some sound whose composition is the anti- 

 thesis to that of a gun-report, e. g., one which will be shriller, 

 having more vibrations than a gun-report, and therefore in its 

 character something in the way of the song of the gnat. 



MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA OF THE BURGHCLERE DISTRICT 



IN 1894. 

 By E. G. Alderson. 



In spite of very uncertain weather and a general prevalence of 

 cold winds, the season of 1894 afforded me far better sport than I 

 was able to get in the wonderfully hot and dry summer of 1893. 

 There was more variety in the species taken, and from April to 

 October there was a steady succession of seasonable captures. 

 Here, in 1893, we had a brilliant but very short period of 

 prosperity, with Macroglossa fuciformis, Bomhyx ruhi, Melitcea 

 artemis, and other good things all out a full month before their 

 time ; and then, with the dull weather in July, the stream 

 of insect life seemed suddenly to dry up, and autumn species, as 

 far as I was concerned, were a complete failure. Perhaps the 

 extraordinary heat told upon the collector as well as upon the 

 insects, and want of energy may have had something to do with 

 the empty setting-boards of August and September ; but the 

 fact remains that the autumn of last season was in striking 

 contrast, and brought a number of very acceptable species. 



The range of my observations extended as far as Winchester 

 on the one hand and Savernake on the other. The occasional 

 excursions, not half a dozen in ail, which I made to these 

 places, added very little to my list, which is practically made up 

 of species taken in the garden attached to my lodgings — most 

 of them by light, at the window of the room where I am now 

 writing. 



