54 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
phila there, both imago and larva (Mr. Thorp speaks of Silene 
inflata, sic? p. 237); and at Douglas I learnt that none had been 
taken at the lighthouse in consequence of the wind. I took, 
however, larvee of Sesia philanthiformis in July, Mr. Thorp 
having failed to find it in June, which illustrates another 
peculiarity of the season, to which I shall again refer. Lastly, I 
note that Mr. M‘Rae speaks of ‘‘ extensive defoliation in the New 
Forest” at Midsummer, 1881. ‘To this cause, therefore, I attri- 
bute chiefly the actual scarcity of Lepidoptera, which, as I noticed, 
was most marked in certain tree-feeding species. 
Cause .3, of the want of success of most collectors, I think, 
was the unusual atmospheric conditions throughout the season of 
capture, coupled with the derangement of the usual time of 
appearance, for the unusual warmth of the spring induced a very 
early apparition of insects; and, on the other hand, about the 
middle of June a sharp frost occurred, which ushered in a period 
of cold, ungenial, wet weather, causing the summer imagines to 
be as late as those of the spring were early, and the larve of slow 
development. I endorse, therefore, Mr. Bull’s experience (Entom. 
xv. 192), that of the Rev. Seymour St. John, and others, in spite 
of Mr. Carrington’s evidence to the contrary from Huntingdon- 
shire. On several nights in May I took large numbers of Macros 
at sugar, while on June 3rd I captured ninety specimens of nine- 
teen species, out of twenty-five species observed, and left off from 
sheer weariness before the flight had shown signs of abatement. 
Bearing the above in mind it is easy to see how excursionists or 
temporary visitors to well-known localities would be baffled by 
the delay or precocity of emergence of expected species. More- 
over, the character of the season was, as Mr. South remarks, 
“eccentric” and fickle, suggesting the possibility of electrical 
disturbance as being a factor in the results, as doubtless it is in 
other domains of zoological experience. I found that only an 
average of one out of eight nights was fairly productive, either at 
light, sugar, or ivy, throughout the season, even where there was 
no failure of many species. A week’s visit to a locality might, 
therefore, be no sort of a criterion of failure or abundance of 
Lepidoptera there. As to Rhopalocera the cold and wet of the 
summer prevented their flight, and that of day-flying moths, such 
as Stenia irrorella; but in the spring there seems to have been 
no scarcity. Mr, M‘Rae’s experience at Bournemouth, however, 
