312 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



completed rapidly than if these are retarded. If, as seems probable, 

 the eggs laid by the second-brood moths hatch about September 

 (Sorhagen, Kleinschmet. d. M. Brandenburg, 112, definitely states 

 that they do so in the "autumn"), this period will be fully double 

 as long in the case of the first, as m that of the second, generation. 

 The form with the dorsal blotch white is the true immundana, F. R., 

 while that in which it is dark is var. estreyeriana, Gn. Although Mr. 

 Meyrick, in H B. Brit. Lep. 493 (1895), enters E. immundana as only 

 single-brooded, as also did Heinemann in Kleinschmet. Deutsch. u. d. 

 Schweiz, B. i, H. i, p. 158 (1863), the existence of a second brood in 

 England, as well as on the Continent, has been long known, and is 

 recorded in Wilkinson's Brit. Tort. 82 (1859) ; Stainton's Manual, ii. 

 208 (1859) ; Morris's Brit. Moths, 175 (1868) ; Entom. xiii. Ill (1880); 

 Snellen's Vlind. v. Nederland, Microlep. 335 (1882) ; :^ouug Nat. v. 

 206 (1884) ; Sorhagen's Kleinschmet. d. M. Brandenburg, 112 (1886); 

 Tutt's Prac. Hints, ii. 42 (1902), etc. In this last work it is said to 

 be only partially double-brooded, but it seems likely that, at any rate 

 in many districts, it is completely and regularly so. Again, Meyrick 

 gives the larvae of the April-May imagines as feeding in July and 

 August, whereas in this and various other localities, botn English and 

 Continental, the larvae that produce the April-May moths hatch out 

 in the autumn {teste Sorhagen, I.e.), live inside the birch and alder 

 catkins, and can be collected, about full-fed, in plenty therein during 

 the end of February and March. The larvae that produce the later 

 brood feed on the leaves of these trees in June and July, and the 

 moths emerge about August. — Eustace R. Bankes ; Norden, Corfe 

 Castle, Nov. 10th, 1905. 



New Work on British Butterflies. — We have received Part i. of 

 'A Natural History of the British Butterflies,' by J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. 

 Pages 1-4 are occupied by general observations on butterflies and part 

 of a chapter dealingwith egg-layiug. These items appear to be an instal- 

 ment of the Introduction. The familiar Hesperiids are in future to be 

 known as Urbicolides, and the author's reasons for this change will 

 be found in the following passage, extracted from his remarks on the 

 superfamily : — " .... in 1758, Linne separated (Syst. Nat., x., 

 482) the smaller butterflies — hairstreaks, blues, coppers and skippers — 

 under the title Plebcii, and further subdivided (op. cit., pp. 482, 484) 

 them into the Rurales and Urbicolce, the latter being, even at this time, 

 absolutely restricted to the ' skippers.' Pallas, in 1771, Fabricius, in 

 1775, 1781, and 1787, and Esper in 1776, maintained the Linnean 

 name. In 1780 Goeze called them the Urbicola;, and in 1781 Barbut, 

 using Urbicola in a truly modern generic sense, fixed the type of the 

 genus as comma, Linn., No. 256, whilst in 1788 Borkhausen sub- 

 divided the Linnean Rurales into the Subcaudati (hairstreaks), liutili 

 (coppers), and Polyophthalmi (blues), keeping, however, the Linnean 

 name Urbicola; for the skippers ; whilst, more important than all, 

 Fabricius himself, in renaming the group (Ent. Syst., iii., 258) in 

 1793, Hesperia, retained the Linnean sub-divisions calling the blues, &c., 

 the IJ esperia-Rurales, and the skippers the Hesperia- Urbicola. So far, 

 therefore, as Linne's group names — Papilio, Nymphalis, Plebeius, Ruralis, 

 Urbicola, &c. — have any classificatory and nomenclatorial value, it is 



