SOCIETIES. 121 



no difficulty with them, for they fed quite readily on poplar. Why, 

 then, do they not breed freely in England? Simultaneously with 

 these I was breeding C. nnpta and C. sponsa. The conditions were 

 precisely similar in all three cases. Sponsa emerged from ova on 

 April 23rd, 24th, and 25th, pupated May 28th to June 2nd, imagines 

 appeared July 1st to 6th. Nupta larvfe came out April 27th till 

 May 9th, spun up during the first week in June, and arrived at 

 maturity July 7th to 17tb. They are all very fine insects, and their 

 breeding afforded me much pleasure. I brought through a summer 

 brood of 5. illustraria, which fed on birch from May 20th till June 11th. 

 They grew very rapidly, and produced fine imagines from June 29th 

 to July 4th. This struck me as being very quick work — i.e. forty 

 days from ovum to imago, under natural conditions. I got some ova 

 from a female, and hoped to rear a second brood, but unfortunately 

 they all proved to be unfertile. A batch of E. fuscantaria, fed on ash 

 from May 19th to June 21st, produced a good series, which emerged 

 at intervals between July 22nd and August 17th. A very fine female 

 of A. hetiilaria var. doubledayaria was sent me from Yorkshire, together 

 with a number of ova she had laid. Swarms of larvae appeared on 

 July 5th and 6th. They fed up successfully on lime, and pupated 

 between x\ugust 20th and 26th, with the exception of one, which went 

 on feeding till September 21st. Four Kiionymus bushes in my garden 

 were, as last year, swarming with larvae of A. grossulariata ; but 

 though I examined about a hundred of the resultant imagines, I failed 

 to find any that were not typical. 



The above represents the bulk of my work during the season of 

 1901, which I think I may fairly call a very satisfactory one. — F. A. 

 Oldaker ; Parsonage House, Dorking, Dec. 7th, 1901. 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society of London. — March 5th, 1902. — The Rev. 

 Canon Fowler, M.A., F.L.S., President, in the chair. — Dr. B. Douglas 

 Macdonald, M.D., of Malsette, Rhodesia, S. Africa ; and Mr. Arthur 

 M. Montgomery, of the Grove, Ealing, W., were elected Fellows of 

 the Society.— Mr. L. B. Prout exhibited, on behalf of Mr. J. P. Mutch, 

 of Hornsey Road, London, N. : — {a) Vanessa [Engonia) poUjchloros, L., 

 a female bred by Mr. H. Baker from pupa from Stowmarket, Suffolk, 

 the ground colour much darkened and the black markings somewhat 

 enlarged, &c. ; suggesting perhaps the influence of cold at time of 

 pupation (compare Tr. Ent. Soc. 1894, p. 431, &c.). {h) Chrysophanus 

 phlceas, L., an aberration (captured in the Isle of Wight, August, 1901) 

 much suffused with the dark colour, especially at outer margin and on 

 hind wings, only a very small patch of the red colour remaining at 

 the inner angle of the latter, (c) Agrotis puta, Hb., a perfectly halved 

 gynandromorphous example, the right side male, the left side female, 

 taken in August, 1901, in the Isle of Wight, [d) Noctua sobrina, Gn., 

 an aberrant specimen with white antennae and a somewhat hoary 

 appearance on the fore wings, taken in East Aberdeenshire, August, 

 1900. — Mr. A. Bacot exhibited a series of Malacosoma castrensis and a 



