232 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
CoLLEcTING IN THE NEw Forest.—At the end of July I 
returned from a week’s collecting in the New Forest. It may 
perhaps be interesting to readers of the ‘ Entomologist,’ who may 
have contempiated a visit to this favourite ground, to know what 
I did there. The result of my visit was most unsatisfactory; in 
fact, I doubt whether any week could be found during the whole 
season which would have produced such poor success. It is the 
more remarkable, as during the six weeks immediately preceding 
the time of my visit, I had found a very fair average of insects in 
all the districts I had worked, one or two species having appeared 
in greater numbers than usual. But at the end of the second 
week in July a cold north-west wind set in, which continued, with 
but slight variation, until the end of July. This, combined with 
the wet weather experienced from the 14th to the 23rd, must 
account principally for the non-appearance of Lepidoptera. On 
the other hand, larvee and pups ought to have been as plentiful 
as usual; but though the beating-tray was in requisition for three 
or four days, nothing save one Notodonta chaonia fell under the 
stick ; and though tree trunks were searched again and again for 
pupe of Lithosia quadra and Liparis monacha, not one was to be 
seen. I am therefore somewhat at a loss to account for this 
disappearance of insect life. It was suggested by a resident in 
the Forest that the scarcity of imagines was owing to the pre- 
valence of ichneumons, but in my own experience I did not observe 
more than the average number of these insects. Had they been 
more plentiful than usual, I doubt whether their increase ought 
to have interfered to such a great extent with the finding of larve. 
Moreover, I believe it to be the experience of most entomologists 
that the balance of nature is pretty evenly kept up between 
Lepidoptera and Ichneumonide, and that the one does not 
increase very greatly without a corresponding increase of the 
other. The total number of species seen by me was twenty-six. 
Of these, the only insects which might be called plentiful were 
Satyrus janira, S. hyperanthus, and Lycena egon. At sugar the 
total number of specimens seen were three Leucania turca and 
three Mania maura. This for three evenings’ work! The result 
of one evening’s sugaring near Salisbury was three Cymatophora 
duplaris and one T'riphena pronuba. The only Geometer which 
appeared in any numbers—and that really very sparsely—was 
Ypsipetes impluviata. There was one peculiarity with regard to 
