?4 2 FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 



crust over the soil, so as to prevent the perfect insects emerging 

 therefrom, and also to prevent the full-fed larvae from pupating 

 therein, as they normally do. This being so, I prefer to cover 

 over the whole of the ground beneath and between the bushes 

 with lime, leaving no unprotected patches of soil at all. The 

 correspondent who recommended this method stated that it had 

 been in use in his garden over a period of forty years, and the 

 Sawfly had never been noticed except when the lime dressing 

 had, through inadvertence, not been applied. (E. R. B.) 



NOTES ON LEPIDOPTERA. Most of the attention that I was 

 able to bestow on the Lepidoptera in 1908 was devoted to those 

 of Invernesshire, whither I had gone to recruit my health, and 

 hardly any to those of our own county, so I can venture no 

 useful opinion about the season from my own experience, 

 though, from the reports that reached me and my own scattered 

 observations, it seems to have been a moderately good one for 

 this order of insects, and the weather in our part of England was 

 all that the collector's heart could desire. A few Dorset captures 

 are worthy of special mention. On July 1 1 Mr. E. P. Reynolds 

 captured a fine example of Hyloicus pinastri, L., at honeysuckle 

 bloom at Branksome, and on the following day a nice specimen 

 of Hyles euphorbia, L., was taken at Canford Cliffs, also near 

 Poole, by Mr. W. G. Hooker, both species being new to the 

 Dorset List. Two further interesting additions thereto were 

 made by Mr. W. Parkinson Curtis, for he secured a full-fed 

 larva of Apoda limacodes, Hfn., at Cranborne on September 28, 

 and an imago, in fine condition, of Rhodophaa zellen, Rag. 

 (tumidella, Zk.), at Bloxworth on July 4. It proved to be an 

 exceptionally good year for Camptogramma fluviata, for whereas 

 our county was only known to have yielded a total of four 

 examples in the past, seventeen were captured, September 26 to 

 October 31, at Parkstone, by Messrs. D. Hartley and Sydney T. 

 Thorne, and I took one at Corfe Castle on October 4. As usual, 

 I am greatly indebted to Mr. W. Parkinson Curtis for full 

 information about his own captures, and also about others of 

 special interest that have come to his knowledge. Through him 



