308 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Malacosoma neustria ab. — As the process block, reproducing 

 the photograph of this interesting aberration of M. neustria, did not 

 print clearly in the text {antea, p. 257), Messrs. West, Newman & Co. 

 have very kindly reprinted the figure on plate paper. The curious 

 way in which the central lines of the fore wings run together below 

 the middle can now be plainly seen. It may be mentioned that 

 somewhat similar aberration in the transverse lines has been noted 

 in M. castrensis. 



AciDALiA humiliata Reared FROM OvA. — I think it is perhaps 

 worth recording that I have recently bred A. humiliata from ova to 

 the perfect insect, two lovely specimens emerging about a fortnight 

 ago. I took the insect during my stay at Freshwater in June, and 

 succeeded in getting some fifty or sixty ova. They fed up well until 

 about half-grown, and then appeared to be undecided whether to feed 

 up or hybernate ; a few chose the former, and I sent a couple of full- 

 grown larvae to be figured, and two imagines emerged as before 

 stated. I am afraid the remainder will not survive the winter. — 

 R. Tait, Jun. ; Roseneath, Ashton-on-Mersey, Cheshire. 



The Hybernation of Gonepteryx rhamni. — In 1904 I sent you 

 a note on this subject (see Entom. xxxvii. 141), in which I surmised 

 that a female specimen I found sitting exposed on Jasminuni nudi- 

 florum on the morning of January 17th had crept out from some 

 neighbouring ivy to which she had retired for her winter sleep. The 

 truth of this hypothesis was curiously confirmed on October 29th, 

 1908. At 11.0 a.m. in brilliant sunshine I noticed a very fine and 

 perfect female G. rhamni fluttering around some ivy on the south side 

 of my house. I sat down on a garden-seat close by and watched her 

 carefully. She spent ten minutes in basking on the ivy-leaves, or on 

 those of Vinca major growing in a bed beneath, flying occasionally 

 round the sunless eastern corner, evidently examining the ivy with 

 which it is covered. Into a fairly large gap in this ivy she finally 

 retired at 11.10 a.m. ; there no doubt to pass through a period of 

 torpidity not likely to be broken by the feeble wintry heat of eastern 

 suns. — Rev. G. H. Raynor ; Hazeleigh Rectory, Maldon. 



Nepticula acetos^ in Surrey. — Reading in last month's 

 ' Entomologist ' (p. 254) that at a meeting of the South London 

 Entomological Society Mr. Sich exhibited mines of Nepticula acetosa 

 from Surrey, I walked over to the nearest station for its food-plant, 

 about a mile from here, and, after a short search, found the unmis- 

 takable circular blotch-like mines of this most diminutive creature ; 

 they were, however, by no means common. I found seven or eight 

 after half-an-hour's search. How often is one tempted to go a long 

 railway journey in search of some desirable species when it may 

 sometimes be found close to one's door ! — A. Thurnall ; Thornton 

 Heath, November 5th, 1908. 



Syrphids Killed by Fungus. — Once or twice at the end of Sep- 

 tember and beginning of October last on Esher Common, Surrey, I 

 met with several dead Syrphid-flies, Melanostoma scalare, Fabr., on the 



