228 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



gleichenella, taken on the wing in the afternoon sunshine on the 

 Cotswolds on July 8th, 1909, and July 7th, 1910 ; Lithocolletis cerasi- 

 colella, taken in the Forest of Dean on May 18th, 1907 ; L. jjyri- 

 vorella, bred in May, 1905, from mined apple-leaf found in my garden. 

 — C. Granville Clutterbuck, F.E.S. ; Heathside, Heathville Eoad, 

 Gloucester, April 22nd, 1911. 



Breeding Trochiliubi apiformis. — I never attempted to breed 

 this species but once, and then I was most successful by adopting 

 the following plan : Having found, in the middle of February, 1875, 

 twenty-two cocoons at the base of Pojnilus nigra trunks, near Cam- 

 bridge, I procured a large flower-pot, and half filled it with small 

 broken pieces of another flower-pot. I then placed about three 

 inches of loose mould on the top, and buried the cocoons perpen- 

 dicularly in it, leaving them about a quarter of an inch above the 

 surface. Of course, to be sure that I had placed them heads upper- 

 most I had to make a small opening at one end of each cocoon, but 

 this did not disturb the larvae apparently, as the small opening w^as 

 speedily closed again. I then covered them with a good thickness of 

 loose moss, which was taken out, saturated with water, the super- 

 fluous moisture squeezed out, and the moss replaced ; this was done 

 about once a week. A piece of coarse muslin was tied over the pot- 

 mouth, and the pot placed on two bricks (to allow a thorough 

 draught) in an outhouse with the open window facing east to catch 

 the morning sun. Between June 8th and 13th inclusive, from these 

 twenty-two cocoons I bred twenty-two cqnforme ! nineteen perfect 

 and three more or less crippled. — A. Thurnall ; Wanstead. 



Query respecting Sesia sphegiformis. — When walking the 

 other day through a large wood in the Midlands, where " felling " 

 was going on, I noticed that many of the birch-trees (from six to 

 nine inches in diameter) were bored by, evidently, the larva of a 

 Sesiid. As S. sphegiformis occurs in this wood, I concluded that the 

 borings were made by the larvae of this insect, but on closer exami- 

 nation I found that there was apparently no emergence hole through 

 the side of the tree at the top end of the burrow, and that con- 

 sequently emergence must have taken place through the entrance 

 hole, as in the case of T. hembeciformis and S. andrenceformis. 

 Unfortunately I could find none but old burrows, probably because 

 of the age of the trees. Can any of your readers help me to eluci- 

 date the matter ? S. sphegiformis is said to attack birch as well as 

 alder. The late Miss Ormerod wrote : " The attack of the Alder 

 Clear wing has long been known on the Continent as injurious to both 

 birch and alder." But S. sphegiformis, so far as my experience goes, 

 always emerges from the top end of its burrow, which for that 

 purpose it diverts from the central portion of the stem up which it 

 has fed. If therefore the burrows I saw were made by *S'. sj^hegiforonis, 

 its habit when feeding in birch differs from when feeding in alder, 

 possibly because of the thickness of the birch bark, or possibly 

 because of the amount of sap which the inner bark of birch always 

 contains and which might drown the larvte. If the work I saw was 

 not done by »S'. sphegiformis, what other larvae could be responsible 

 for it ?— Percy C. Keid ; Feering Bury, Kelvedon, May 20th, 1911. 



