288 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Entomological Notes, Captures, &c. 
Argynnis Niobe in Kent.—I should like to make a few 
remarks in reference to the plan suggested by Mr. Clifford, 
in the ‘ Entomologist’ for October (Entom. vii. 225), for dissi- 
pating the doubts, which he says are still entertained by 
some entomologists, as to the recent capture of Argynnis 
Niobe in Kent. Mr. Clifford says:—“If the gentlemen who 
have made acquaintance with Argynnis Niobe will associate 
with themselves one or two entomologists of known skill in 
larva-hunting, and, without indicating the precise position of 
the valley or hollow between Wye and Ashford to the 
entomological world generally, arrange to make a careful 
united search for the larve of A. Niobe during the spring, we 
may possibly get a result conclusive enough to satisfy all 
sceptics.” Now it seems to me that if this plan were to be 
adopted no satisfactory result could possibly be arrived at; 
for if the larvae were not found, there would be no proof that 
they were not there; and if found, there would be no evidence 
how they came there. Some three or four years ago, while 
beating for larve in the High Woods here, I beat from an 
oak-tree a very large, handsome larva, that evidently belonged 
to a species not included among our native Fauna. For a 
moment I was completely puzzled, but immediately after- 
wards remembered that Dr. Wallace had been turning out a 
number of specimens of Bombyx Pernyi; and the mystery 
was at once solved. Another collector shortly afterwards 
beat three larve of this species, and later in the season 
several cocoons were found on oak-trees in the same locality. 
This seems to indicate that finding larve in a given locality 
is not in itself a sufficient proof of their British origin. Even 
if the eggs of Argynnis Niobe could be found laid naturally 
on the wild heart’s-ease in the locality where the captures are 
reported to have been made, the question of the authenticity 
of the species would still remain exactly where it is now. 
Here, the only locality for Meliteea Athalia is being rapidly 
destroyed; and, fearing this pretty species should disappear 
from our neighbourhood altogether, | employed a man, three 
or four years ago, to collect all the larve he could find, and 
turn them down in another locality, about a dozen miles off, 
where the insect did not previously occur, but where the 
