THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 18 
Plymouth by an early afternoon train, and soon found 
ourselves at Bickleigh Station, from whence we descended to 
the valley below, crossed the river Plym, and walked up the 
hill on the other side towards the Caun Quarry Woods,—the 
locality we had previously fixed on for beating for larve, 
which were to be the chief object of our pursuit. On our 
way we turned our attention to the hedges on each side of 
us, and many common species of Geometre were soon dis- 
lodged, Larentia pectinitaria being perhaps the most abundant: 
what a pest this is when one is mothing at dusk; I have often 
filled a dozen boxes or more with them, thinking they were 
something else. It is, however, a very pretty moth, and how 
nearly it resembles a piece of lichen as it sits with expanded 
wings on a block of moss-covered granite. A little distance 
further up the hill we came to a small patch of waste 
ground, where a few stunted sloe-bushes grew, and these 
were beaten in the hopes of obtaining larve of Thecla 
Betule, but none were found, as it was rather too late in the 
year for them, and the same bushes had been tried by one of 
our party only a few days before, and three or four larve 
taken. Presently a strange-looking moth responded to the 
rattle of my stick, flew across the road, and settled in the 
opposite hedge. I walked carefully towards it, and then saw 
for the first time alive a beautiful specimen of Eurymene 
dolobraria: it was a female, and was soon boxed, and I was 
much pleased to make its acquaintance. Subsequently it 
laid some eggs, which, on leaving Plymouth, I turned over to 
my friend Mr. Bignell, but 1 have not heard whether he 
succeeded in rearing any of them. Just before we reached 
the woods we had to cross a small extent of heathy ground, 
and here Bombyx Rubi was flying about freely in its usual 
headlong manner, and we certainly thought it was rather late 
in the season to find this species still on the wing. The 
woods, at the point where we entered them, were composed 
chiefly of young pollard oaks of about six or seven years’ 
growth, with here and there a few birch and buckthorn 
bushes, and, in the whole course of my entomological career, 
I never saw such a sight as presented itself to our astonished 
gaze when we first plunged into this wood. In many places 
large patches of oaks were literally stripped of every leaf, and 
innumerable larvae were to be seen wandering over the 
