309 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Butterflies of France. — I shall be much obliged if any entomo- 

 logists who have collected in the following departments of France, 

 or can refer me to local collectors, or published local lists, will 

 communicate with me : — Oise, Aisne, Ardennes, Meuse, Meurthe-et- 

 Moselle (later than Gantener), Yonne, Nievre, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron, 

 Herault, and the Vosges districts generally. — H. Rowland-Brown ; 

 Harrow Weald. 



The Rose Scale. — Mr. Theobald, in his very valuable ' Report on 

 Economic Zoology,' just published, states (p. 98) that he has not been 

 able to detect this scale {Aalacaspis voscb) in the open in Kent, Surrey^ 

 or Sussex. I may as well record, therefore, that last year I found it 

 out-of-doors on a rose-bush in my brother's garden at Ewell, Surrey. 

 On p. 64, Mr. Theobald gives an account of an interesting new apiiid, 

 Siphonophora fragariella, Theob., attacking strawberries. The generic 

 name Siphonophora is a homonym, and apparently the proper name 

 for the genus is Macrosipham, Passerini, 1860. The strawberry aphid 

 will therefore be Macrostphum fragariellum. — T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Hornet and Butterfly. — Mr. Lucas's note (Entom. xxxviii. p. 282) 

 reminds me of an incident. One morning in September, I think it 

 was in 1893, while watching several specimens of Pyrameis atalanta 

 enjoying fallen fruit in the orchard, I was surprised to see a hornet 

 suddenly pounce on one of the butterflies as the latter was sailing 

 round, about four feet above the ground. In a few seconds the hornet 

 had bitten off the beautiful wings of the butterfly, and was bearing 

 away its helpless victim between its legs. Sic transit yloria viundi ! — 

 Alfred Sich ; Corney House, Chiswick, Middlesex, Nov. 8th, 1905. 



Phalonia badiana, Hb. — I have just been reading with much 

 interest the remarks on the larval habits of this species by Mr. Bankes 

 [ante, p. 275). That the larva leaves the seed-heads of Arctium lappa 

 to pupate elsewhere is undoubtedly correct. I have bred a large 

 number, and have always found that upon leaving the seed-heads they 

 spin their cocoons amongst the rubbish in the pot. I do not now 

 think that they even enter the stems or roots at any time, as I have 

 carefully examined large numbers of stems in the winter where the 

 larva occurred commonly in September, but always without any result. 

 I am afraid that entomologists are often " like sheep " in following 

 statements without trying to verify them, by so doing they have in 

 this instance most decidedly " gone astray." When I first began to 

 collect the Tortrices, I used to search in vain for this larva in the stems 

 of its food-plant until I mentioned the matter to Machin, and he 

 remarked : " You will never find them there, as they always spin up 

 amongst the rubbish upon leaving the seed-heads, in winch I have 

 always found them." The next season I was able to confirm his 

 statement. With regard to Mr. Bankes's inability to find Mr. Maling's 

 note, quoted by Sorhagen, I think that I can throw a glimmer of light 

 on the matter. In the ' Entomologist,' vi. 283, Machin (in a list of 

 insects reared in 1872) gives " A. badiana, bred from seed-neads of 



