NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 153 



with SO idle a spur that our spasmodic investigations are rarely 

 more than pour passer le temps. We sincerely congratulate Mr. 

 G. H. Grosvenor. 



The rat-borne plague of the Ipswich vicinity, about which 

 we heard so much last year (especially from Sir Edwin Eay 

 Lankester, K.C.B., M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.), is at present lying 

 perdu, and more or less strenuous efforts have been made 

 locally — too locally to be effectual, we fear — to exterminate the 

 carriers of the host-flea. Personally, we are inclined to con- 

 sider the trouble a thing of the past ; but Mr. R. C. Wroughton, 

 late Inspector-General of Indian Forests, than whom no one is 

 more competent to judge, tells us that the rats are likely to 

 simply migrate inland and the scourge to again break out, 

 possibly in the neighbourhood of Hertfordshire. Here, again, 

 there is no home entomologist from whom to seek succour. The 

 only account of the matter we have seen, in anything like per- 

 manent form, is contained in a brochure on * The Death- 

 dealing Insects and their Story,' a delightful little book by Dr. 

 C. Conyers Morrell, of the Authors' Club, published by the 

 H. A. W. Offices, Brazennose Street, Manchester, late last year. 



During last month Mr. H. Maxwell-Lefroy, M.A., Imperial 

 Entomologist, India, gave a course of lectures on Entomology 

 at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, South 

 Kensington. The course was opened on March 2nd, and con- 

 tinued twice weekly during the month. In conjunction with the 

 lectures, which were free, a course of practical work was also 

 available for students desiring to specialize in entomology. The 

 average attendance at the lectures seems to have been about 

 twenty, and a fair proportion of this number took the practical 

 course, for which a small fee was charged. These lectures, with 

 the class work, will be resumed in May and June next. 



The Entomological Society of London proposes to hold a 

 Conversazione in the Eooms of the Linnean Society, Burlington 

 House, by kind permission of the President and Council of that 

 Society, on Wednesday, May 17th, at 8 p.m. Lectures will be 

 delivered during the evening, by Professor Poulton, F.R.S., 

 F.L.S., &c., and Mr. F. Enock, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



CM. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Remarkable Aberration of Terias elathea. — Those interested 

 in the butterflies of the West Indies will be pleased to hear that 

 when collecting here this morning, at an elevation of about 300 feet 

 above sea-level, I had the good fortune to net a male specimen of 

 Terias elathea, in which not only the black longitudinal dash on the 



ENTOM. APRIL, 1911. M 



