CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 117 



wondering if his type was our varietal form. I got three species of 

 larvas, and all very much like each other — M. Uturata, Bupalus piniaria, 

 and Thera variata. Skipping minor points of difference, all were 

 green, all about the same shape and size, and all were striped with 

 either white or yellowish white ; but the red-brown head, legs, and 

 claspers easily marked out M. Uturata, while the white dorsal line of 

 B. piniaria separated the latter from T. variata. Some imagines of 

 T. variata appeared in October ; possibly others are lying over till next 

 June. But I was a week or more too late, and I did not get many 

 of either species. The August brood of Pararge meycBra showed up 

 numerously in the neighbourhoods of Saughall and Shotwick. The 

 under sides of this butterfly, with their delicate dark pencillings on a 

 grey ground, their marginal crescents and target-like discs (I am 

 referring to the secondaries), deserve more attention than perhaps 

 they receive. Among " varieties " I have little more to add. I 

 reared two or three dozen Odonestis potatoria, and I believe the follow- 

 ing description holds generally good as far as the spots on the upper 

 wings are concerned : ',' A white central spot, and a small white spot 

 between it and the costa." One of my males is without this small 

 white spot. On Oct. 12th I went to Delamere Forest with a friend 

 who is great on fungi. These ephemeral things were the objects of 

 his visit, mine were as many imagines of Oporabia autumnata as I 

 could take. Fungi there were in profusion. Two species of the 

 " fairy-riugs " grew in the fields — the tasty champignon and the 

 equally common " puff-balls." In the woodlands there were fungi 

 scarlet, fungi violet, fungi white, and fungi chocolate. Broadly 

 speaking, Nature marks the poisonous species in brilliant colours, like 

 so many danger signals. On the birch trunks, no longer hidden by 

 denser foliage, grew the fungus peculiar to these trees, Polyporus 

 betulinus. This, when dried, forms a capital substitute for cork. It 

 is pure white when dried and cut up, and the first entomological 

 cabinet I ever saw was lined with strips of this fungus. By beating 

 the birches I sent on the wing three geometers, which, from their 

 silvery whiteness, may have been autumnata, but I failed to net them. 

 And I was obliged to give the birches up, for they were so charged, in 

 the early morning, with the rain-drops of the previous night, that 

 beating the branches was like standing in a shower-bath. My friend 

 left by a mid-day train, and I went to lunch at the 'Abbey Arms,' and 

 then to dessert in the forest off' luscious blackberries, which nobody 

 seems to gather in these days of factory-made jams and "substitutes." 

 But this led me among the oaks, and as everything was now dry, I 

 beat them for all I was worth, as I had accidentally started two or 

 three Oporabias from them. I got about two dozen altogether, in- 

 cluding nice banded forms and paler specimens. But, thanks to the 

 kind assistance of Mr. L. B. Prout, they all turned out to be O. dilutata. 

 The moral of this story, I should say, is keep away from oaks if you 

 want autumnata, and stick to alder and birch (Entom. xxxiv. 43). At 

 the electric lamps the luck continued, on the whole, deficient in 

 quantity, although very fair in quality. On August 20th I took a 

 moth new to the district, Asphalia diluta. Unfortunately it had been 

 trodden upon as it rested on the pavement below the lamp. In 

 September, AncJwcelis liinosa was unusually plentiful, including pale 



