NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 155 



Retinia pinivorana, both in very fresh condition ; and I was 

 pleased at getting a nice series of the latter. In the evening I 

 tried sugar on the trees in the gardens and shrubberies, but saw 

 nothing but a few of the most common species. There was so 

 much honey-dew that moths would hardly look at sugar. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Idiaspa maritima, Hal., in Suffolk. — This species has not been 

 discovered outside the British Isles. Haliday described it in the old 

 Ent. Mag. 1838, p. 230, under the name Alysia maritima, adding, 

 " Habitat sub fucis marcentibus in littoribus Hiberniae borealis 

 rarissime — Hantoniensibus, F. Walker ; Eboracensibus, T. G. Budcl — 

 qui plura examplaria mecum benevolo communicavit." It was not 

 again mentioned in literature till the publication of the Rev. T. A. 

 Marshall's " Monograph of British Braconidse," when (Trans. Ent. 

 Soc. 1894, p. 522) he says it occurs sparingly amongst decaying sea- 

 weeds on the coast, quotes the above, and adds : " I have taken it on 

 Lymington Salterns, and Mr. Billups found it at Dulwich." This is 

 all we know of the species, for the same author's reference to it, " II 

 se trouve parmi les algues pourrissantes, aux hordes de la mer, et 

 dans les salines, mais pas communement. Cotes d'Angleterre et 

 d'Irlande " (Bracon. d'Europ. ii. 399), adds nothing. I was, conse- 

 quently, delighted to take a male of this rare (or overlooked) species 

 on September 1st, 1911, walking leisurely and somewhat sluggishly 

 on the unusually dry mud among the close-set roots of the reeds 

 in Covehithe Broad, on the Suffolk coast, within a quarter of a 

 mile of the sea, but at a spot where the water is at most brackish 

 and by no means salt, and to which seaweed certainly never extends. 

 It will doubtless be found parasitic upon some semi-saltmarsh 

 Dipteron, possibly Platycephala planifrons, F., or Ephydra riparia, 

 Fin., which occurred in some numbers on the surrounding reeds. — 

 Claude Morley ; Monk Soham House, Suffolk. 



The Summer of 1911 and the present Season. — It will be of 

 special interest this year to note what effect, if any, results from the 

 abnormal season of last year. By way of preliminary record I am 

 able to state that in Bury Wood, Epping Forest, last month H. 

 leucoplicearia was unusually common. As early as January 1st a 

 specimen of P. ijedaria was taken and forwarded to me from Paisley, 

 Scotland. On February 26th another specimen, almost black, was 

 sent to me from the same town, both specimens having been taken 

 from the street-lamps. This afternoon, on the tree-trunks in the 

 Ilford Road, B. hirtaria was, without exaggeration, swarming. I have 

 never in the whole course of my experience seen this moth so abun- 

 dant. On the trunks of two rather small lime-trees in one front 

 garden a friend who was with me and I counted twenty-eight and 



