NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 277 



Elkington Woods afforded capital collecting. Thence a run to 

 see the Grimsby shipping was hurriedly followed by a volte-face 

 to Market Easen, a small market-town with the usual midland 

 complement of wood and lane collecting : the day was fine and 

 insects abundant. At Lincoln it poured torrentially. But we 

 thought eighteen hundred specimens not a bad week's bag, 

 though many were common kinds. 



C. M. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Note on Stephens's Culicid^. — Since writing my notes on the 

 British mosquitos I have been surprised to discover that Stephens's 

 collection of Culicidge is not only still in existence, but the specimens 

 are still in a fair state of preservation in the British Museum. Of 

 the species Stephens described himself, C. affinis is represented by 

 six male Tlwohaldia anmdata; G. fwnipennis by one female Theo- 

 baldia theobaldi; C. marginalis by one male and one female G.inpiens ; 

 and G. concinnus by one female 0. nemorosus (?). The dark margins 

 of the abdominal segments referred to by Stephens in C. marginalis 

 are the posterior borders, not the lateral ones, as might be inferred 

 from the description ; the colour is on the integument and is not 

 due to scales : such a condition occurs not uncommonly in female 

 G. pipiens, but there are no structural differences. The specimen of 

 G. concinnus was not so labelled, but answers perfectly to Stephens's 

 figure ; it is just possible it may eventually prove distinct from 

 0. nemorosus, but I prefer at present to leave it as a synonym or 

 variety of Meigen's species. The name Theohaldia fumijJcnnis 

 (Steph.) will have to replace T. theobaldi (Meij.). Of the remaining 

 specimens in the collection, those named sylvaticus, lutesceus, jjunc- 

 tatus, ricfiis, and bicolor are all more or less rubbed C. pipiens. 

 G. ornatus is represented by one female 0. lateralis and one male 

 0. diversus ; C. Jiavirostris by one female C. pipiens and one male A. 

 maculipennis. — F. W. Edwards ; British Museum (Natural History). 



Egg of Eustroma reticulata. — Having recently had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing the ova of Eustroma reticulata deposited under 

 natural conditions, a brief description of the egg may be of interest 

 to complete my previous notes on the life-history of this species (vide 

 ' Entomologist,' March, 1912, p. 85). Size, large for the size of the 

 moth ; shape, a blunt oval ; colour, pearly white, decidedly opale- 

 scent; surface, smooth, and, under moderate magnification, without 

 "pitting" or pattern; attached to the under side of the balsam-leaf 

 in apparently no precise situation ; rarely more than one egg on a 

 leaf. — Frank Littlewood ; 10, Aynam Eoad, Kendal, Westmorland, 

 August 7th, 1912. 



Argynnis euphrosyne, ab. — A short time since my friend Mr. 

 C. J. Bellamy showed me a variety of the above-named butterfly he 

 had been fortunate in capturing in the New Forest this season. The 

 usual tawny-brown ground colour of the wings is replaced tJy a pale 



