318 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The Natural History Museum, South Kensington. — Some 

 months back an article appeared in this Magazine, deahng with the 

 alleged intentions of the Government to appropriate the extensive 

 site of the "Natural History Museum" to the uses of a pi-ojected 

 new " Science Museum." The matter, we are glad to say, has now 

 been settled agreeably to the interests of all parties ; the Natural 

 History Museum retains its only possible area for expansion ; the 

 Science Museum is relegated behind the northern limit of the 

 Museum enclosure. We owe our best thanks, therefore, to the 

 energetic naturalists who promoted the petition to the authorities for 

 a re-hearing of the case. Their efforts have been entirely successful ; 

 and all that remains for the Government to do is to sanction the much 

 needed additions to the building in which, at present, the Entomo- 

 logical Department is " cribbed, cabined, and confined." — H. R.-B. 



Mr, Eustace R. Bankes, having been ordered complete rest by 

 his doctors, in consequence of a severe nervous breakdown, hopes 

 that his correspondents will kindly refrain from writing to him, or 

 sending him insects for identification, &c. 



The Nature of Melanism. — Mr, Leigh [antea, p. 163), speaking 

 of the dark colour of some species of moths, says : " While in others 

 it may be of physiological importance, and associated in some way 

 with constitutional hardiness." This reminded me of an incident I 

 once witnessed, which seems to bear on this point. In the spring of, 

 I think, 1897, being anxious to get ova of Chimabacche fagella, I 

 brought home one female and two males. One of them was of the 

 pale grey form, and the other was a very dark specimen. I placed 

 them in a cage together with the female, and later, towards dusk, I 

 looked into the cage. The grey male was just in the act of pairing 

 with the female, but before he had finally clasped her the dark male 

 ran up the back of the cage, brushed the grey one aside, and paired 

 with the female. The grey male did not show any fight at all. 

 There may, of course, have been some preHminary skirmishing, but 

 all I saw was the finish of the fight, if there had been one. During 

 the short time that this action was taking place the female appeared 

 perfectly indifferent to what was happening. If it could be shown 

 that when a dark and a light male form contend for a female the dark 

 form is usually victorious, another factor would be added to our 

 knowledge of the production of melanic and melanochroic forms. — 

 Alfred Sich ; Corney House, Chiswick, Middlesex, Sept. 5th, 1911. 



Cateremna terebrella, Zk. — I was pleased to read in last 

 month's ' Entomologist ' of the occurrence of this, at present, little- 

 known "knothorn" in Devonshire. I bred and duly recorded (Bnt. 

 Mo. Mag. xlii. 180) a specimen from a spruce-fir cone picj^ed up in 

 Surrey when collecting a few cones for the purpose of breeding Cydia 

 strobilella. This emerged on July 3rd ; another appeared July 30th, 

 and a third August 1st. After an interval of a month, finding that 

 no more came out, and wishing to see a pupa-case, I opened the few 

 cones I possessed, duly found the empty pupae, and somewhat to my 



