112 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Unusual Emergence op Noctua plecta. — On February 7th I 

 found a perfectly fine specimen of Noctua plecta in the vestry of the 

 church. The larva had probably pupated in the vestry in the 

 autumn, and the warmth of the church had caused the imago to 

 emerge at this early date. — Kev. J. E. Tarbat ; Fareham, Hants. 



Unrecorded Occurrences of Euvanessa antiopa. — Possibly 

 some light is thrown upon the question of the identity of the larvae 

 referred to as those of the Camberwell Beauty, in the quotation under 

 the above heading, given by Mr. Rowland-Brown (antea, p. 68), by 

 the following note which occurs in Humphreys and Westwood's 

 'British Moths,' vol. i. p. 91, where it is stated of the larva of 

 Porthesia chrysorrhoea, L. : — " It feeds on various plants, especially 

 whitethorn, in June, and has at times become so remarkably 

 abundant as to cause a serious panic to Londoners, especially in 

 1782, when prayers were offered up in the churches against 

 the enemy; and the churchwardens and overseers of the neigh- 

 bouring villages, after offering rewards for collecting these cater- 

 pillars, attended to see them burnt by bushels." It will be noted 

 that both the date and the measure by which the quantity of the 

 caterpillars was estimated are the same in the two accounts, and I 

 think we should not be far wrong in assuming that Professor Hall 

 Griffin's Camberwell Beauty caterpillars were none other than those 

 of Porthesia chrysorrhcea. — Egbert Adkin ; Lewisham, Feb. 1911. 



With regard to Mr. Rowland-Brown's interesting reference in 

 your last number to the abundance of larvae in Camberwell, in 1782, 

 I think there is little doubt but that they were Stilpnotia salicis, for I 

 have met with them abroad — practically in thousands. Yet another 

 species must be taken into consideration, viz. Malacosoma neustria, the 

 larvae of which many years ago (I am speaking of the fifties and early 

 sixties) occurred in the greatest abundance. Trees in orchards, I can 

 remember, were often denuded of their leaves, such were their ravages. 

 My earliest recollections in entomology are associated with collect- 

 ing the "rings" of ova of this species. With regard to Vanessa 

 a^itiopa, in my experience the larvae are essentially sallow feeders. 

 I have found them in Spain and commonly in the South of France 

 but always on sallow. It is true the imagines frequent willows, but 

 is it not the Cossus and other exudations which attract them? — 

 A. H. Jones ; February 4th, 1911. 



Autumnal Emergence of Polygonia c-album, var. hutchinsoni. 

 — During Sept. 1910, I sent the Rev. Alfred Stiff, of Leigh-on-Sea, 

 some two dozen larvae of c-album which I had bred from Wye Valley 

 stock. During January of this year he wrote to me and said he had 

 been most successful with them, and had bred four specimens of the 

 var. hutchinsoni, which emerged mid-October. This seemed to me 

 very strange, as none of the remainder of the brood in my hands had 

 produced the variety, and I had never had, nor heard of the variety 

 being bred in the autumn, it being purely a June or early July form. 

 I had bred some of the new straw-coloured variety, unheard-of before 

 this year, and rather expected that he had mistaken these for var. 

 hiUchinsoni. I therefore asked him to let me see the specimens, and 



