NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 301 



Dates op Emergences of Certain Butterflies in 1911. — It 

 may be of interest to record the dates of emergences of some of the 

 butterflies in this neighbom^hood during the present abnormally hot 

 summer : — Lyccena minima, most abundant but very worn, June 

 15th. Epinephde tithonus (males only), very plentiful, July 5th. 

 Adopcea lineola (males principally), most abundant, July 7th; this 

 species had apparently been out quite a week. Cyaniris argiolus, 

 second brood, a large and fine form quite plentiful in my garden, 

 July 8th. The larvi« were not uncommon up to the end of June, 

 feeding on young holly leaves. — A. H. Jones ; Shrublands, Eltham, 

 August 19th, 1911. 



Note on Amphidasys betularia, Tephrosia biundularia, and 

 Trichiura crat^gi. — I have reared over forty specimens of A^njyhi- 

 dasys betularia this season from ova deposited by a female intermediate 

 between the type and ab. douhledayaria. I find that the percen- 

 tage of males and females is exactly equal. Is this not rather 

 unusual? Also on May 16th, 1910, I went to "Pamber Forest," 

 Hants, and among the insects I took was a female of Te-phrosia biun- 

 dularia closely approaching if not quite identical with ab. dela- 

 onerensis as shown in ' Moths of the British Isles,' Plate 136, Fig. 8. 

 I kept it alive for ova, of which it laid about thirty, and from these 

 moths were duly reared. The pupae were kept out of doors all the 

 winter. The moths, twenty-two in all, emerged between April 39th 

 and May 13th, 1911. Eleven (seven males, four females) are like 

 Fig. 6, Plate 136, while the other eleven (eight males, three females) 

 very closely approach Fig. 8, Plate 136. On September 19th, 1910, 

 I took a specimen of Trichiura cratcegi on a lamp at Eeading 

 in grand condition. I think this species is rather scarce in this 

 locahty ? — H. L. Dolton ; 27, Brunswick Street, Reading, July 10th, 

 1911. 



Hybernation op Pyrameis atalanta. — In reply to Mr. Frohawk 

 (p. 248), I really have no " views " on this question, and should be 

 sorry to dogmatise on the little knowledge I possess of the habits of 

 P. atalanta. Before, however, accepting as proved the theory that 

 atalanta in Britain is due entirely to immigration, we need consider- 

 ably more proof than either Mr. Newman or Mr. Frohavv'k has given 

 us. Like other species, this may hybernate, either as (1) imagines : 

 Mr. Newman's experiments in artificial heat hardly disprove the 

 possibility ; (2) ova : some of the late summer ones may not hatch 

 till spring ; (3) larvae : the full-grown ones mentioned by Mr. Frohawk 

 in October may — some of them — outlive the winter in that state ; or 

 they may as (4) pupae tide through the winter. I would point out 

 that purely negative proof is not sufficient ; suppose, for instance, 

 that only one out of a thousand atalanta hybernated in one of its 

 forms, it would still be quite as adequate to account for its distri- 

 bution as a few specimens blown over from France. Supposing the 

 above four possibilities disposed of, there still remains the difficulty, 

 which Mr. Frohawk has not attempted to explain, that North French 

 conditions are no more favourable to hybernation than English ones, 

 and that, therefore, if hybernation in England is ruled out, so it must 



