THE IRRKGULAR DIARY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST. 45 



been of considerable value in the way of exchange, as appears 

 by the following entry : — 



" September 13th. — Turner has called twice upon me within 

 the last few days, and I have bought about 30s. worth of insects 

 from him, and also gave him a dozen C. [B.] castrensis, and 

 exchanged another dozen with him for insects. I have also 

 bought about 12s. worth of insects .from Argent in the last few 

 days, and exchanged castrensis for others. From him I obtained 

 sixteen P. avion, taken by J. Chambers at Stilton, which is near 

 Yaxley in Cambridgeshire [there surely must have been some 

 error herej . Mr. Doubleday also sent me to-day a box of 

 insects, and when I went down there a few weeks ago to take 

 him fifty castrensis, he also gave me about fifty good insects in 

 return. The opportunities have added several species to my 

 collection, which I am now rearranging, and have also enabled me 

 to complete my series of many species of which before I had only 

 bad specimens. My own collecting this year has also con- 

 tributed much to this end." 



The following entry, the last in this diary, shows the deep 

 interest the writer took in entomology, and the careful manner 

 in which he made his observations : — 



" July 17th, I860.— I have now been ill above twelve months 

 and am still almost incapable of taking any exertion, but I have 

 not been able to resist capturing a few insects in the garden. 

 They have principally been Hymenoptera and taken within the 

 last three or four days, for the weather has been so bad that we 

 cannot be said to have had any summer. ... On Friday last, 

 the 13th, I took about fifty insects, among them twelve speci- 

 mens of Fcenus assectator, which I had only once before met with 

 in the garden some years ago. Only one was a female, and that 

 I took on a flower. The others were hovering over some rotten 

 stakes. Whilst watching a black currant bush, I observed a 

 currant-tree Sphinx alight on the lower part of a dead branch 

 and walk up it in a semi-spiral line, feeling with its ovipositor, 

 which was fully protruded, first on one side of it and then on 

 the other, so that it examined the branch carefully all round. 

 After walking up in this manner three or four inches, it came to 

 the remains of a little branch which had been cut off nearly close 

 to the main stem, and the pith having decayed was left hollow, 

 into which it immediately inserted its ovipositor, and remained 

 depositing its egg or eggs about a minute, when it flew off." 

 The currant-tree ''Sphinx" mentioned in the above is, of course, 

 Sesia tipuliformis. 



EicHAED South. 



