154 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



On June 7th I went to Castor, near Peterborough. The 8th 

 was a fine hot day. I went to the woods and found I was too 

 late for Carter ocephalus palcemon (paniscus) ; I saw many, but 

 they were all too worn to take. A. euphrosyne, Hesperia malva 

 (alveolus), and Thanaos tages, were flying about blackberry 

 blossom, but were also much worn. One Parasemia plantaginis 

 was disturbed out of some rough herbage, where also rather a 

 nice form of Ematarga atomaria was plentiful, but very few 

 Geometrae were seen, and those only common species. Beating 

 produced a few larvas of Polyploca riclens, Tceniocampa popideti, 

 and T. muncla. On a sunny bank, overgrown with thistles and 

 Ononis, L. straminea was plentiful, and larvae of Amblyptilia 

 acanthodactyla were abundant on the Ononis, and in a swampy 

 place the larvfe of Tortrix costana were numerous, spun up 

 between turned-down or roUed-up tips of leaves of yellow iris, 

 but they were terribly ichneumoned. 



On the 10th a friend motored me to the celebrated Monk's 

 Wood, a locality I had long wished to see. We arrived there 

 about 7 p.m., a lovely fine calm evening, and the wood looked 

 as if it ought to be a perfect entomologist's paradise. But, sad 

 to say, nothing appeared to be moving. The wind was from the 

 north-east, and soon after our arrival it began to feel chilly, a 

 heavy dew set in, with slight ground fog in the damper places. 

 The first thing that I noticed upon entering the wood were the 

 numerous privet bushes, some of them already coming into 

 flower, which reminded me that these flowers are attractive to 

 Thecla pruni, so I wondered if it were possible to find a larva or 

 two of this species. There were plenty of sloe-bushes about, 

 but a very cursory glance at these revealed the fact that they 

 had recently had a tremendous thrashing by some too ardent 

 collector — or collectors I should think by the results of their 

 efforts — for every likely-looking bush had been well flogged, 

 many of the branches were broken, and the leaves were wither- 

 ing on the mangled twigs. No wonder that this very local 

 species is being rapidly exterminated ! In one spot I found a 

 few stunted bushes, not much more than a foot high, that had 

 escaped the beating-sticks, and upon examining these obtained 

 three half-grown larvae of T. hetulce, but no pruni. We had 

 intended to try sugar, but as it continued to get colder and the 

 dew and fog increased, we decided it would be no good, so left 

 the wood about nine o'clock and motored home. 



The 11th was fine, with sun and cloud, a light northerly 

 breeze, and a little warmer. This being Sunday I did not go 

 collecting in the forenoon, but in the afternoon went for a stroll 

 to a fir plantation not far from the house, having put my net 

 and a few boxes in my pockets. Tortrices were plentiful, and 

 dozens flew out every time I beat the branches ; but there were 

 only two species, in about equal numbers : Coccyx tcedella and 



