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NOTE ON THE FLIGHT OF HEPIA.LUS HUMULI. 

 By Dr. T. A. Chapman. 



June ten years ago I recorded an observation on this species, which was at that 

 time apparently new, and was of sufficiently unusual character to make further 

 observations desirable. So far as I know, no one has made such observations in 

 the interval, and the opportunity to do so did not occur to myself until this 

 summer. 



Curiously enough my friend Mr. Barrett records, this year, a nearly 

 identical habit in the case of Hepialus Hectus, a closely allied species. 



It so happened that this summer a meadow conveniently near to my house 

 swarmed with H. Humuli, and afforded me the desired opportunity of repeating 

 my observations— and I devoted a short time on several evenings to noting its 

 habits. 



The first week in June is the usual date for H. Humuli appearinfr, but this 

 year it was fully ten days later than usual, and it was not in full flight until the 

 fourth week in June. It was on several of the long late evenings following 

 June 21st that I made my notes. 



The flight lasts for but twenty minutes. On a dull overcast evening from 

 8.50 to 9.10 ; and, when the sky is bright and clear, from 9.10 to 9.30 ; beginning 

 at the first indications of dusk and ceasing when the white male became a some- 

 what dim object. !No doubt in the shorter evenings earlier in the month the 

 fight would take place at a somewhat earlier hour. 



At first an odd male or two may be seen creeping up the grass steins and 

 taking flight. Sometimes making a wild dash or two of a few yards, but almost 

 immediately settling down to the hovering that has acquired for the species the 

 name of ghost moth ; and, before the vagaries of the first one or two have been 

 noted, the males are seen to have turned out in force and to be busy hovering in 

 all directions. I use the word hovering as the flight has not the regular 

 oscillation of that of H. Hectus male, which looks precisely as if the moth were 

 attached to the extremity of a pendulum, though it has some approach to it. 

 One will occasionally dash off for a few feet or yards and take up a fresh spot, or 

 passing near another hoverer, will be followed for a short distance ; and so it 

 often happens that two or three males may be seen hovering near or even close 

 together, but after the first moment they pay no heed to each other. Mean- 

 time sundry females may be observed hovering over the tops of the grass, but 

 instead of keeping to one spot they steadily move forward. These pass near 

 the hovering males but rarely attract their attention, or only draw them out of 

 position a few inches to at once return. The female moths acting in this way 

 are ovipositing, dropping the eggs loosely into the gi-ass, and if captured, continue 

 to do so in the hand or into a bo.x. The eggs, if dropped on a smooth surface, 

 such as a piece of glass, rebound with much elasticity — a peculiarity met with in 

 other species which drop their eggs loosely instead of attaching them to the 



