204 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The 23rd was bright and very warm — ninety- six degrees in 

 the shade. Pelurga comitata and Tortrix viburniana were now 

 appearing in breeding-cages. The evening of the 25th was fine, 

 calm, close, and very warm, with lightning and distant thunder. 

 I visited the reed-dyke again, and netted thirty N. arnndincta, 

 six S. maritima, three H. paludis, one M. maura, &c. About half 

 the arundineta I have taken are the black form dissoluta. This 

 moth flies low down among the reeds, and I seldom saw any 

 flying high above them, so it requires a quick eye to see them. 



26th. Similar weather to yesterday, only there was a sharp 

 thunder-shower about 7 p.m. Visited the reeds again and got 

 more arundineta, maritima, straminca, paludis, &c. ; among the 

 former there were two very interesting red varieties, and among 

 the maritima there were several var. bipunctata. On my way 

 home I found 2\ amataria and A. emarginata swarming, but 

 they were mostly worn, and among others I netted Lithosia 

 griseola, L. complamda, Calamia phragmitidis, Boarmia rhomboid- 

 aria, &c. 



The 28th was a fine and very hot day. In the evening I 

 went to the salterns and sea-banks. I found moths swarmmg 

 on marram grass, but there was nothing fresh — chiefly L. im- 

 pura, M. abjecta, H. paludis (already worn), &c. It began to 

 rain at about ten o'clock, with thunder and lightning, and I was 

 afraid a big storm was coming on, so I hurried home. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES AND OBSEEVATIONS. 



Natural History Books from the library of the late Mr. A. 

 Harrison will be sold by Mr. J. C. Stevens at his Auction Eooms, 

 King Street, Covent Garden, on July 9th. 



Capture of Moths at Sea. — Some months ago my friend Dr. 

 Charles Chilton kindly forwarded to me, in case they should be of 

 interest, some moths taken at sea during his voyage from New 

 Zealand to this country. He wrote as follows : — " During the 

 morning of November 26th, a moist, hot day, while the ' Ionic ' was 

 a considerable distance off the coast of America, many small moths 

 were blown on to the steamer, and many more were seen on the 

 surface of the sea. This continued all the morning, and, though 

 in less numbers, some were blown on during the afternoon, and a 

 few were seen the next morning ; our position at noon that day was 

 28° 24' S., 46° 30' W. One, or perhaps two, small land birds were seen 

 on the ship at the same time." The position indicated is about one 

 hundred miles off the coast of Montevideo. The insects proved to be 

 almost all Geometrids, and I therefore passed them on to my friend Mr. 

 L. B. Prout, who has been good enough to identify them as follows, 

 viz. : — Pleuroprucha insularia, Guen. (1 male) ; Amaurinia carnana, 

 Druce (8 males, 9 females) ; Eupithecia, sp. (worn) (1 female) ; Doche- 



