NOTES ON NEW AND RARE BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 133 



unknown ! Would that other brother Entomologists abroad 

 would similarly assist us with hints ! 



Odour of Sphinx convolvuli ^ . 

 What can be the cause or the use of the very decided 

 smell of musk which Mr. Hellins has discovered this species 

 emits? Does the creature emerge from the pupa scented 

 a la Rimmel ? If so, what part does his bouquet play in his 

 economy ? Does it act as a talisman against bats and night- 

 jars ? or has it some softening influence on the heart (dorsal 

 vessel?) of the female convolvuli? But if it is not born 

 perfumed, is it not probable that some particular flower or 

 flowers, from which, in* its evening flight, it may have im- 

 bibed, have to do with the matter? Anyhow it is worth 

 thinking about and investigating. 



Are conspicuously marked Larv^ distasteful to 



Birds? 

 Messieurs Jenner Weir and Butler have been at great 

 pains to prove that birds show a very decided objection to 

 eat gaily-coloured larvae ; but Mr. D'Orville, on the other 

 hand, laments that he cannot endorse their opinions, for the 

 conclusions at which these gentlemen have arrived are totally 

 at variance with his own experience. At any rate, talking 

 of "shark" caterpillars, he says (Ent. Mo. Mag. vi. 61) 

 '* as soon as they [the larvse of C. verhasci and absinthii] 

 begin to show colour and size, and appear on the upper sides 

 of the leaves and stems to partake of the flowers, down come 

 the birds and off" go the larvae." What I want to know is 

 this : — If the birds (whose lives of course we should all like 

 to protect on the score of humanity) go picking out the 

 scarce larvae that feed on plants from which we derive no 

 direct beneflt, and leave the noxious grubs to destroy our 



