OSMINGTON MEETING. xliii. 



across. I should like also to draw your attention to some very remarkably 

 shaped blocks of stone of various rounded forms, some very like a huge cottage loaf, 

 which we shall see on the beach when we get near Osmington. These seem to 

 break off from their bed with a curved fracture, something like that of flints, and 

 are afterwards smoothed down by the action of the sea. There are some 

 striking looking ledges running out to sea at the western end of Bingstead Bay, 

 which show the unequal effect of the water on the harder and softer strata, the 

 latter being washed away, whilst these harder ones remain to the danger of 

 navigation. Above the Coral Eag comes the Kimmeridge clay with its ]arge fiat 

 oysters (Ostrca dcltoldeaj , which may be seen here in the cliffs. Beturning to 

 our present position, I may notice that the Upper Greensand attains its highest 

 point near Weymouth, just below Hoi worth House, from which point it falls to 

 the sea-bed immediately under White Nose, White Nore, or White Nothe (I do 

 not know which is its correct name), a conspicuous promontory at the eastern end 

 of Eingstead Bay. The Upper Greensand is especially interesting in Dorset, as 

 it forms the tops of many of the highest hills, including Pilsdon and Leweedon, 

 the two highest in the county, and others in the western district which it is 

 proposed that the Club shall visit next September. 



As our Secretary has mentioned entomology in the programme in connection 

 with my name, I must add a word or two on the subject, though I fear 

 that entomological researches are not very easily carried out during an 

 excursion like this they want more leisure and more solitude. The Lul- 

 worth skipper (Hespcria Actccon) occurs here and at suitable spots all along 

 this coast, and is not, as is often supposed, confined to the place whence it 

 takes its name. It feeds on a common grass, Bracfrypodium pinnattou, and 

 there seems no special reason why it should be so limited in its habitat. Abroad 

 it is much less localised. The new species, Epischma BanJcesicUa, which Mrs. 

 Bichardson and I discovered at Portland in 1887, and of which she found the 

 larva six years afterwards on Inula critfnnoides, I have since met with at 

 Lulworth, and Mr. Eustace Bankes further along the coast, and I have no doubt 

 that it occurs on this coast wherever its food plant grows. It is still exclusively 

 a Dorset species, as it has not yet been discovered in any other part of the world. 

 If our botanists will find the plant, I may be able to show them some traces of 

 the moth. There is a little moth which has been found by Mr. Eustace Bankes * 

 amongst the Viper's Bugloss on this coast, though it does not occur at Portland, 

 where the plant is common, Odontia dcntcdis, so called, I suppose, from its very 

 toothed appearance, and there are probably many rarities awaiting detection, as 

 I do not think that very much collecting has been done here. If Mr. Dale were 

 here, he would be able to tell you of a rare beetle, Ilarpalits oblongittsculiM, 

 which has been an object of great, and not always successful search by him at 



* NOTE. The capture of this moth in Dorset is attributed to Eev. Charles Digby 

 in Dale's " Lepidoptera of Dorset," but I am informed that Mr. Bankes took 

 the first Dorset specimen. It is found in Kent and Sussex amongst this plant. 



