CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 313 



realized that the visitor was a male of the same species attracted by 

 the female, and without loss of time I proceeded to box him as he 

 sat upon my sister's waterproof cloak. Before I had time to do so, 

 however, another male came up and then another and another, each 

 flying with rapid gyrations around the object of their visit and 

 eventually settling upon the aforesaid cloak. These were boxed in 

 the same way as the first. To avoid the villagers, whose curiosity 

 our proceedings had aroused, we passed farther along the road and 

 quickly rigged up a net ready for fresh arrivals. For the next half- 

 hour or so, slowly walking along the lanes with occasional stoppages, 

 we had, at intervals of every few minutes, fresh visitants who came 

 flying up against the wind and making for the person at the time 

 holding the boxed female ; most of these we were able to net, but 

 some were too active for us. The afternoon drawing to a close, and 

 the moths getting scarcer, we turned homewards, full of our adven- 

 ture. On reaching our lodgings I placed the female in a cardboard 

 box having a gauze-covered top, and as evening closed in I set out 

 with her, accompanied by my two boys, and anticipating a renewal of 

 our recent experiences ; in this, however, I was disappointed, for not 

 a single qiiercus put in an appearance. The next morning was too 

 wet for walking, but in the afternoon the weather improved, and 

 replacing the female in a glass-bottomed box, we made another 

 excursion in quest of males. To our delight we had a renewal of our 

 previous afternoon's experience, the males soon appearing, but in 

 greater numbers than before, and furnishing us with plenty of sport 

 as they came flying up against the wnnd and careered wildly around 

 the boxed female ; at times we had five or six to deal with at once. 

 We soon netted a considerable number, but as the novelty wore off 

 we became less enthusiastic in their pursuit. On returning to our 

 lodgings we found our landlady full of excitement, for in our absence 

 our living room had been invaded, by way of the open window, by a 

 small swarm of male " eggars," attracted by the gauze-covered box 

 in which the female quercus had passed the previous night. Although 

 inexperienced at the game our landlady had managed to make more 

 than a dozen captures. 



During the remainder of our holiday — a further ten days or so — 

 the female " eggar " accompanied us on most of our excursions, and 

 our previous experiences with her were each time repeated, except 

 that from day to day her attractive powers became gradually but per- 

 ceptibly weaker. The males therefore came in lessened numbers and 

 were more difficult to net. A few days before the end of our stay she 

 was accidentally crushed to death, but even then still retained a limited 

 power of attracting the males, and this power was also shared by any 

 empty box in which she had been placed. The scent given out by the 

 female is of a musty foxy description and quite apparent to me, and 

 with hardly a doubt is the means by which the males are attracted. 

 I had previously been under the impression that quercus flew during 

 the evening, but our experience was to the contrary ; we never saw a 

 single male fly except during the afternoon, although we occasionally 

 saw a female flying in the evening. We had the good fortune to find 

 another freshly emerged female on another rocky bank, but this was 



ENl'OM. — DECEMBER, 1908 2 



