ai THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
naturally appeal to me, so possibly my own rather small 
experience with Acronycta strigosa nearly forty years ago may 
be interesting to present-day collectors. In the years 1878, 
1874, 1875 I was living in the village of Whittlesford, about 
sixteen miles south of Wicken, and like most young entomological 
enthusiasts the Noctue were my especial favourites. In those 
distant days I used to sugar the trees in the garden and adjoining 
orchard almost all the year round and met with many species 
considered ‘‘real good things” at that period. The first specimen 
IT ever took (of strigosa) was as far back as 1870, flying in the 
garden in the dusk; in 1878 two more at sugar in the same 
place. In the following year I took four: one at light, two at 
sugar in the orchard, and one at rest on the lichen-covered trunk 
of a small hawthorn tree growing in a hedge skirting a field in 
the neighbouring parish of Duxford, in the extreme south of the 
county. In 1875 I also took four: two at sugar and two at rest 
on the same small hawthorn tree above-mentioned. I left the 
district in that year and had very few chances of working for this 
moth afterwards, but on August 4th, 1879 (an unusually late 
date surely !), I took a female in beautiful condition in the garden 
at sugar, and the following month I beat a single full-fed larva 
from a hedge near the house: I never saw strigosa alive in any 
stage afterwards. With regard to its occurrence in Wicken Fen 
itself, I believe it has been taken, but very rarely. My old 
friend, Frederick Bond, told me he only found one (at sugar) in 
the Fen, but he took it in some numbers in some fields at the 
back of Fulbourn Asylum, and amongst them one or two “ black 
ones.” Whether this melanic form has been taken in recent 
times I am unable to say. Mr. Bond’s captures were made, I 
think, in the late fifties of the last century. From the fact that 
it has been taken in the Chatteris, Wicken and Whittlesford 
districts it would seem that it is (or was) found throughout the 
county. Although always associated with Cambridgeshire, some 
of your readers will perhaps be surprised to learn that it has 
been taken as far away as Worcestershire. Mr. Dobree Fox, a 
good entomologist, in the eleventh volume of the ‘‘ Entomologist” 
(p. 252), records the capture of two at sugar in his own garden 
in 1878. Another insect usually associated with the fens, 
Cidaria sagittata, has also been taken away in the West of 
England, in Bewdley Forest, Worcestershire. ‘‘Seven fine 
specimens flying over a swampy place at dusk” (W. Edwards, 
Eintom. xvi. 211). Again, another species, the beautiful little 
Commophila schreibersiana turned up quite recently in Gloucester- 
shire. With regard to Hadena atriplicis I used to take it not 
uncommonly, together with Palimpsestes ocularis, at sugar on the 
trunks of some large poplars on the Waterbeach side of Upware. 
The latter I bred several times from pupe found at the foot of 
some Lombardy poplars at Sawston, in the south of the county. 
