120 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



gardens at sugar, and in 1875-1877 it could be depended upon as a 

 regular autumn species in a garden at Twickenham where I used to 

 collect. Since then I had not seen the species until 1908, when I 

 saw two on sugar at Lyme Regis. Whether this increasing scarcity 

 is real or only apparent must be decided by an appeal to wider 

 experience than mine, as I have done but little autumnal collecting 

 in the South of England for many years. — R. Meldola ; 6, Bruns- 

 wick Square, W.C., March 5th, 1910. 



Entomology in Ireland. — Entomologists are so rare in Central 

 Ireland that anyone seen with a butterfly-net risks being taken, as I 

 have recently been, for a harmless lunatic, but he need fear nothing 

 worse from such a kindly, albeit not very entomological, people. The 

 district of which I write lies between Birr (in King's Co.) on the 

 north and Nenagh (in Tipperary) on the south, a few miles east of 

 Lough Derg ; and the collector may there rely on finding many 

 somewhat local or rare insects. L. sinapis occurs yearly in con- 

 siderable numbers ; M. aurinia and G. ruhi also yearly, though 

 more plentifully in some years than others. Last June-July, when 

 sugaring was less successful than usual, I found that Centrantkus 

 ruber and, rather later, its white variety proved wonderfully attractive 

 at dusk, alike to Sphingidte, Noctuidae, and Geometridse. Among 

 the moths taken at the valerian, I may name G. elpenor, G. porcellus 

 (plentiful), P. chrysitis, P.festma, P. imlchrina (plentiful), P. bractea, 

 G. umbratica, and many common species. In my good-sized garden 

 (containing some three hundred varieties of herbaceous plants) each 

 scattered plant of Gentranthus had its visitants, and a few Plusias 

 were taken at Geranium pratense flore pleno ; while profusely bloom- 

 ing honeysuckle and all other flowers failed to yield a single moth. — 

 Percy Bicknell ; Lincoln Hatch, Burnham, Bucks. 



Eois (Acid alia) herbariata, F., in Gloucestershire. — Mr. 

 W. B. Davis, of Stroud, has generously given me a specimen of this 

 Geometer, which he took on July 11th, 1909, at Messrs. Partridge's 

 Mill, Stroud, flying over a fine species of Beseda, said to come from 

 Spain, and used for dyeing cloth yellow. Mr. Meyrick, in his ' Hand- 

 book ' (1895), at p. 235, states : " E. herbariata, F., . . . is said to 

 have occurred in London, but, if authentic, it was doubtless an 

 accidental importation. The species inhabits S. C, and S. Europe." 

 The late Mr. C. G. Barrett, in his ' Lepidoptera of the British 

 Islands ' (1902), vol. viii. p. 21, says : " this moth is one of the most 

 rare of our species, and indeed may not be genuinely domiciled here ; 

 its sole food seems to be the dried leaves of preserved plants or 

 herbs, and since it is not known to occur regularly anywhere with 

 us, there is room for suspicion that our few native specimens may 

 have been introduced, in the larva state, wath imported herbs. This, 

 however, is quite conjectural, and the insect is usually admitted into 

 any British collection, the possessor of which is so fortunate as to 

 secure a specimen. The first record of it in these islands appears 

 to be that by the late Mr. H. T. Stainton, in the ' Entomologist's 

 Annual ' for 1856, under the name of Dosithea circuitaria, but after- 

 wards corrected by him in the ' Zoologist ' for 1858. This was of a 



