NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 227 



haps readers of the ' Entomologist ' may not be aware that in the 

 " twenties " and " thirties " of the nineteenth century Paiyilio machaon 

 was regarded as almost as great a rarity. In this connection I 

 venture to quote the ' Eeminiscences of the late Albert Pell, some- 

 time M.P. for South Leicestershire,' edited by Thomas Mackay (John 

 Murray, 1908), as follows : — " When Whittlesea Mere was bright 

 with water, one family of gipsies made a living by capturing for 

 collectors the ' swallow tail,' a very rare and beautiful butterfly that 

 fluttered among its reeds and sedges, also the large copper butterfly 

 equally rare. So it was in my young days ; but now all is gone — 

 reeds, sedges, the glittering water, the butterflies, the gipsies, .... 

 and in its place, as the result of an enormous and unprofitable outlay, 

 a dreary flat of black arable land. . . ." By a curious coincidence, it 

 was at Pinner Hill, Middlesex, the house occupied by the Pell family 

 of the previous generation, and then almost as remote in the country 

 as the fens themselves, that I discovered in a case the three examples 

 of C. dispar which I believe to have come from Benacre in Sufl'olk, 

 as recorded by me elsewhere. Mr. Albert Pell was not only a great 

 agriculturist, but also a close observer of bird life and a keen fisher- 

 man. — H. Kowland-Beown ; Oxhey Grove, Harrow Weald, May 

 20th, 1911. 



Varietal Names. — In the report of the sale of part of the collec- 

 tion of the late Mr. J. W. Tutt (Entom. May 1911, 185), Mr. Adkin 

 asks why so little interest was manifested in the many named 

 varieties. To me the answer is obvious. With the exception of 

 perhaps half a dozen British lepidopterists who are interested in the 

 matter, no one uses such varietal names as nigroruhida, ochrea, ffavo- 

 riifa, intermedia, minor, &c., nor cares anything whatever about 

 them. In the case of a strongly marked variation, where the whole 

 fades of the insect is altered, such as in the var. descliangei of S. 

 luhricipeda; varleyata, nigrosparsata, and lacticolor of A. grossu- 

 lariata; douhledayaria of A. betularia, and many others which at 

 once occur to one's mind, a varietal name is not only advisable but 

 necessary ; but that a slight shade of colour, an extra spot, or the 

 widening or contracting of a band, should entail the special naming 

 of forms difl'ering so slightly from the type is absurd. The craze for 

 such name-making has caused a good deal of ridicule among lepido- 

 pterists generally. — Geo. T. Porritt ; Huddersfield, May 6th, 1911. 



Gloucestershire Lepidoptera. — Referring to my note on species 

 new to the county in the ' Entomologist ' {antea, p. 155), I can now 

 add the following to my list: — Pyrausta (Botys) fuscalis, taken in the 

 Forest of Dean among Melampyrum on June 23rd, 1910; Schrecken- 

 steinia {Chrysocoris) festaliella, taken in a wood on the outskirts of 

 the Forest of Dean on April 13th, 14th, and 20th, 1911 ; Phalonia 

 (Argyrolepia) cnicana, taken on the Cotswolds on July 1st, 1909 ; 

 Coleophora murinipennella, taken on the Cotswolds on May 17th, 

 1910 ; Mompha {Laverna) ochraceella, netted near Gloucester on 

 July 16th, ]909, and also on the Cotswolds on July 21st, 1910 ; 

 Limnoicia (Laverna) pkragmitella, captured at dusk on the bank of 

 the River Severn, near Gloucester, on July 23rd, 1905 ; Elachista 



