NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 291 



Pyralis lienigialis, Z., near Oxford. — When writing my note 

 headed " Re-occurrence in Britain of Pyralis lienigialis, Z." (antea, 

 p. 235), I had completely forgotten that an individual of this rare 

 species had been recorded, in Ent. Mo. Mag., ser. 2, xiii., 273 (1902), 

 as captured near Oxford on August 22nd, 1902, and exhibited by Mr. 

 South at a meeting of the South London Entomological Society held 

 on October 9th of that year. I have just come across my manuscript 

 note, made in 1902, giving the reference to this record which shows 

 that the insect has occurred in one English county besides Bucks. It 

 is regrettable that the name of the captor is omitted, and especially 

 so that the precise county in which the moth was taken is not 

 specified, for ; ' near Oxford " might refer equally well to part either of 

 Berkshire or of Oxfordshire. — Eustace R. Bankes ; Norden, Corfe 

 Castle, November 17th, 1907. 



Note on the Name of a Cicada. — The Central American species 

 whjcli Distant (Cat. Cicadidae, p. 121) calls lien era marginella is based 

 on Cicada marginella, Walker, 1858; but it^is not the Cicada marginella, 

 Fab., Syst. Rhyng., p. 96. The synonym Carineta ancilla, Stal, 1864, 

 is available, the species becoming" /--/erm-a ancilla.^-T. D. A.Cocker'ell. 



Ophiusa lianardi and its Varieties. — I think that a few remarks 

 upon this extraordinary moth will be of some interest, especially, 

 perhaps, to those who are acquainted with the species, and I shall be 

 very glad to receive further notes from collectors or rearers of the 

 moth. In Natal 0. lianardi occurs usually about once in every three 

 years, and then it simply swarms. What becomes of it in the 

 interval has so far not been satisfactorily ascertained. It has been 

 suggested that the larva? feed upon the flowers of a very common plant 

 here called the buckweed, which only flowers every third year ; but 

 although I have very carefully looked for the larvae upon the flowers of 

 this plant, I have never found it thereon. I feel certain that the 

 buckweed is not the food-plant. The few larvae 1 have found were 

 feeding upon the suckers growing on a tree that the hawk-moth, 

 Baniana postica, feeds upon. I am unable to give the scientific name 

 of this tree, as I believe that it has not yet been named. I am of 

 opinion that 0. lianardi is migratory, visiting us either from Portu- 

 guese Africa or Rhodesia, as in both places the moth occurs. It is 

 chiefly remarkable from the fact that it flies commonly by day, and for 

 the number of forms that it assumes. In a collection that I have 

 before me there are fifty-seven specimens, all of which are different, 

 aud in at least twenty instances the difference is so great that almost 

 anyone would think they belonged to some other species of Ophiusa. 

 As a rule, however, the markings on the hind wings are constant, but 

 in some instances the white markings are absent from them. In 

 1905 this moth was so common here as to be a nuisance, and from any 

 grass at the sides of the roads in the town they flew up in numbers 

 when disturbed. There must have been hundreds of thousands of 

 them in Durban and its suburbs alone. I hear that the moth was just 

 as common at Pietermaritzburg and all along the south coast as far as 

 Park Rynnie, a distance of forty miles ; a few, I am told, turned up in 

 1906, but the moth has not been seen since up to the end of August, 



