FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 265 



Laphygma exigua, Hb., reached East Dorset at the same time. 

 The summer being favourable to their progeny, large subsequent 

 broods of most of these welcome visitors were observed in due 

 course. It is of special interest to be able to record that 

 Mr. W. G. Hooker, of Bournemouth, himself captured at 

 Branksome, whilst hovering over rhododendron flowers, at dusk, 

 May 29th June 8th, eleven specimens of the rare P. livormca 

 [inadvertently given by him as " ten " in Entom. XXXIX., 162, 

 where his captures were also erroneously ascribed to Hants 

 instead of Dorset (vide op. cit. p. 189)] and several H. peltigera, 

 and that many other individuals of both species were then seen 

 by him. Larvae of the latter were more or less common locally 

 later on, and from some, collected by myself in the Isle of 

 Purbeck, the perfect insects were subsequently reared. Of 

 L. exigua, Mr. W. G. Hooker and four friends took at light, in 

 the Poole district, about fifty examples in the course of August, 

 September, and October, and from eggs laid by one of the 

 females Mr. W. J. Ogden succeeded in rearing a goodly series 

 of moths (Entom., XL., 65). 



But to return to our scarcer permanent residents, Sesia 

 culidformis, L., of which there were previously only two known 

 Dorset specimens, was discovered by Mr. W. Parkinson Curtis, 

 in Bere Wood, where several specimens were secured by him 

 and one by myself, and I had the good fortune to net, at Corfe 

 Castle, an example of Hemaris tityus, L. (the narrow-bordered 

 Bee Hawk-moth), which has but rarely been met with in the 

 county. But by far the most noteworthy event of the year was 

 the discovery near Wim borne of the Plume-moth, Stenoptilia 

 graphodactyla, Tr., of which a few individuals were captured, 

 and several bred by Paymaster-in-Chief Gervase T. Matthew 

 (see Ent. Rec. XVIII., 245). This species is new not only to 

 Dorset, but also to the British List ! (E. R. B.) 



FLIES. GREAT MIGRATION OF FLIES. In "The Country 

 Side" of June 2nd, 1906, Mr. C. F. M. Chambers, of Spencer 

 Hill, Wimbledon, writes as follows: " Flies in great numbers 

 were seen on May i3th on the coast near Wey mouth flying 



