126 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ment of the Board of Agriculture — predictions of the probable 

 occurrence of various insect pests that would be based on the 

 relations that had been observed to exist between certain natural 

 j)henomena extending over a considerable number of years, which 

 would render it possible to issue timely warning and advice of 

 inestimable advantage to the agriculturist and incalculable value 

 to the nation at large. 



I trust then that the few disjointed remarks it has been my 

 privilege to address to you this evening may serve to stimulate 

 us to a more intense 'interest in the fascinating study of insect 

 life, more especially with a view to the solution of such economic 

 questions of importance to cultivators of the soil as that to which 

 I have just alluded, — a study which, whilst providing us with 

 every opportunity for pleasant recreation and interesting investi- 

 gation ourselves, will afford us additional gratification by the 

 knowledge that we are also contributing to relieve the anxiety, 

 lighten the labour, and increase the prosperity of thousands of 

 our fellow men. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Hecatera SERENA LARVAE NOT ON Goat'sbeard. — Mr, L. B. Prout 

 has kindly written to me about the supposed larvae of Hecatera serena 

 feeding in the flowers of goat's-beard near Chester {a?ite, p. 105). His 

 interesting letter makes the supposition that the larvae were H. serena 

 so improbable, that, with his permission, I give his remarks upon the 

 species in full. He says : — 



" Unless the species has very different habits at Chester from the 

 normal, I cannot conceive that you can have been ' too late ' for the 

 larva on June 18th, and half fancy your ' informant ' must have been 

 poking fun, and that it was something else which had hollowed out 

 the flowers of goat's-beard. In all places where I have collected, the 

 imago of serena is just in its prime in the latter half of June and 

 beginning of July, and as the larva /o/Zojcs the imago in the same year 

 {i. e. the species hybernates in pupa), June 18th seems an impossibly 

 early date. Moreover, I doubt if you will find ' goat's-beard ' — by 

 which I understand the common ' Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon' {Tragnpogon 

 pratense) of our meadows — its usual foot-plant. This goat's-beard, 

 with its grass-like leaves, is in flower in June, which, as I have just 

 said, is too early for my experience of serena larvae. I used, misled 

 by Newman, to search for it on ' sow-thistles,' but some notes by 

 Dr. Riding and Mr. Fenn some years ago (Ent. Rec. ii. p. 290, iii. 

 p. 84) raised doubts whether it ever fed naturally on these, and 

 suggested that it should be sought on ' hawk's-beard' (Crepis). I 

 immediately put this hint to the test — about July 20th, at Sandown — 

 and beat three larviB, half-size to nearly full grown, out of the very 

 first batch of Crepis which I tried. The species, however, seems 

 rather scarce at Sandown, and it was not till 1898, when I visited 



