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ENTOMOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES. 131 
T have seen fourteen shillings retused for it, and that was even a 
wasted one. But sugar found them in plenty, and I am of 
opinion that there are few things really rare. You have only to 
find out their habits and food-plant. Look at Aleucis pictaria, 
only one taken in fourteen years, yet they existed in plenty on the 
bloom of blackthorn. Although a man searched Dartford Heath 
fence a fortnight without success, a few yards from him they 
swarmed at blackthorn. Since then they have been found in 
many places. 
In the year 1847 Mr. Hindley and myself made up our minds 
to go to Dover and collect. We started in the steamboat to 
Margate, and walked to Deal. The wind was blowing very hard, 
and we had a difficulty in landing. But we arrived at Deal 
safely. The next morning it poured with rain, but we walked to 
Dover through it. When it cleared somewhat, we made up our 
minds to return, thinking that little could be done if we con- 
tinued our proposed expedition. In walking across the sandhills, 
making for Sandwich, we took from the stems of grass two 
specimens of a Lithosia. ‘This was in broad daylight. These 
I showed to Mr. Doubleday some days after, and he pronounced 
it to be a variety of the common one, but to make sure he sent it 
to his friend Herrich-Schiiffer, who averred that it was Lithosia 
pygmeola. One of these specimens Mr. Robinson, of Limehouse, 
had, and one I retained for my own collection. 
— Some twelve years after I thought I would go to Deal and try 
to find them again, and I was rewarded by finding them in plenty. 
I appear to have been the only person who collected on the south 
coast of Kent for some years. There was a man from Dover, who 
visited St. Margaret’s Bay some years ago, of the name of 
Leplastre, who was a watch-maker. He seems to have taken 
Stigmonota leplastriana, which was named after him. In one of 
my rambles I went to St. Margaret’s Bay; the weather was hot 
and thundery, at which time insects leave their retreats and fly. 
I captured during that evening a Noctua which I did not know, 
as it was much wasted. When Mr. Doubleday saw it he said that 
it was much wanted, and I promised to go again for it next 
season. I did so, and took seven the first night on the blossom 
of the bugloss, and several of Plusia orichalcea. The place is now 
destroyed by the inroads of the sea. In Mr. Stevens’ sale a short 
time ago it was stated in the catalogue,—‘ P. orichalcea, five 
taken by Mr. Harding at Deal,” and ‘another lot taken and bred 
