NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



311 



the limit of its endurance. The above, however, shows that, under 

 favourable conditions, i.e., protection from predatory enemies, &c., its 

 vitality will enable it to withstand a much longer period and still 

 produce perfect imagines. — Robebt Adkin ; Lewisham, November, 

 1905. 



Early Hybernation of Vanessa urtic^. — Seeing the record on 

 the above subject (page 281) has induced the following note. Every 

 autumn the ceiling of a certain staircase in this house is the resort of 

 one, or more, hybernating V. ^irticce, but this season, at the beginning 

 of July, I noticed a specimen, in fine condition, had taken up its 

 quarters upon a slanting part of the ceiling, wings erect, head down- 

 wards, legs spread out, and antennae neatly folded back as usual. I 

 see it is there to-day in exactly the same position, and is the only one 

 taking advantage of the retreat. The question naturally arises — what 

 is the cause of hybernation ? It cannot be a feehng of the approach 

 of winter or lack of food in this case, as the temperature was far more 

 summer-like after the insect had settled than it was before, and the 

 situation is comparatively well lighted, so that the insect could not 

 have mistaken dusky surrounding for the shortening days of autumn. 

 I shall watch its motionless repose with interest, unless the broom 

 dislodges it, for doubtless it has been noticed that this very necessary 

 and useful instrument and hybernating insects are somewhat at 

 variance. — G. B. Corbin; Ringwood, November 14th, 1905. 



Partial Second Brood of Spilosoma menthastri. — A female speci- 

 men of S. menthastri, captured in Kensington in May last, deposited 

 just over one hundred eggs. The larvffi fed up rapidly, and, excepting 

 a few that died when full grown, pupated. Twenty-one imagines 

 emerged during the latter part of August and beginning of September, 

 and there are now (November 20th) thirty apparently healthy pupae 

 still remaining. The majority of the specimens reared favour the 

 female parent in the amount and style of the black maculation, as well 

 as in the ground colour, wdiich is of the normal white. Some, how- 

 ever, have the ground colour creamy ; others have few black spots ; 

 and one example has only one spot about the centre of the fore wings, 

 and two or three towards the outer margin. — E. G. Gentry & W. E. 

 Phillips. 



Epiblema (Phlceodes) immundana, F. R. — With reference to Mr. 

 A. Thurnall's note {antea, p. 281) on this species, I cannot explain the 

 apparent absence of the white- blotched form from among the first- 

 brood specimens in his district ; but my own experience by no means 

 accords with his. For whereas, among large numbers of examples of 

 the earlier brood, he has not seen any with the dorsal blotch "nearly or 

 quite pure white," I find that, out of the twenty-one bred and captured 

 representatives of this same brood from the Isle of Purbeck, that have 

 remained with me, nine are of this form which his experience leads him 

 to believe only occurs in the later generation. It is quite likely that 

 everywhere a larger proportion of the second, than of the first, brood 

 would have the dorsal blotch white, as the result of the well-known 

 tendency (acting on an inherent tendency towards this style of marking) 

 shown by species to produce paler imagines if their metamorphoses are 



