224 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Parasite in Lepidopterous Ovum. — During the first week of July, 

 while collecting a few miles from Beaconsfield, I found a few eggs of 

 Ptilodontis palpina on some small aspen bushes. A day or two ago I 

 was much surprised by three ichneumon flies emerging from one of 

 these eggs. — G. F. Bird ; Rosedale, 162, Dalling Road, Hammersmith, 

 W., July 23rd, 1900. 



OviPosiTioN OF PoLYGONiA c-ALBUM. — My attention has been directed 

 to a note by Mr. South (Entom. xxx. p. 173, 1897), where he quotes 

 Mr. Frohawk's observations that the eggs of this butterfly are laid 

 singly. I only once took the trouble to get this butterfly to lay eggs, 

 and it then laid them in short chains of two, three, and four. No doubt 

 Mr. Frohawk's observations, like mine, were made on the butterfly in 

 captivity. So it is very possible that his observation, or mine, was 

 vitiated by an abnormal habit caused by this circumstance. It seems 

 to me more probable that this butterfly varies in its habits in different 

 individuals. All I can testify to, however, is that c-album does, upon 

 occasion at least, lay its eggs in chains, like its American kindred. — 

 T. A. Chapman ; Betula, Reigate. 



Pairing of Vanessa urtics; and Epinephele ianira. — This morning, 

 while walking down from my house to. the town, I noticed two butter- 

 flies in cop. on a wall by the side of the road. I cautiously approached 

 them, when I was much surprised to find that they were not of 

 the same species — the male being Vanessa urtioE, and the female 

 Epinephele ianira. I had no apparatus with me, but I succeeded in 

 catching the two insects in my fingers, and brought them back to my 

 house, where I placed them in a breeding-cage. Should the female lay 

 any eggs, I should be very happy to send them to anybody who would 

 care to try and rear them. — J. Williams Vaughan ; Bryn-y-Mor, 

 Tenby, July 11th, 1900. 



Habits of Cossus ligniperda. — The interesting note by Mr. Robt. 

 Adkin on this subject (ante, p. 128), recalls to my mind many pleasant 

 excursions in the past in search of this species. Mr. F. B. Harvey, 

 Mr. M. Culpin, and others will recollect the Chingford locality, which, 

 some ten years and more ago, we used to call the " Cossus ground " ; 

 between us, I believe, we learnt a good deal relative to its habits. One 

 experience, but an instance from natural choice of the larva, resembles 

 Mr. Adkin's experiment — " full-fed larvse placed in the dry stump of a 

 limb, produced imagines." I have recorded elsewhere (Ent. Rec. ii. 

 211) how, in 1889, my friend Culpin and myself procured dozens of the 

 larviB, which had gone into cocoon for the winter, from the old stumps 

 of willow trees, which had been cut down some years before. Un- 

 doubtedly the larvae, when full-fed, usually leave the larval burrow, 

 and search for a suitable place in which to make the winter cocoon. 

 They do, however, pupate in the locality of, if not actually in, the 

 larval burrow. We have not unfrequently taken the imago drying its 

 wings, just above the empty pupa-case protruding from a hole through 

 bark and tough wood. Moreover, in some instances, until the pupa 

 broke through the bark, there was no evidence of the existing tunnel ; 

 in this respect the habit is similar to that of the Australasian 

 HepialidsB — i.e. the wood-borers — which, however, never leave the 



