Field Notes. 363 



Beetles in the Victoria Count}- History of Yorkshire. Leptidea 

 hvevipcnnis Muls., admitted to the British hst by Messrs. Beare 

 and Donisthorpe, on insufficient grounds, I think, has also oc- 

 curred at Barnsley. 



Although I have several times met with Gracilia minuta 

 in a free state, on what one might call neutral ground, I have 

 not yet found it in such circumstances that I should feel justified 

 in claiming it as an indigenous species. It has excellent powers 

 of flight, and in bright sunshine, is very lively, reminding one 

 more of a large gnat than a beetle. The mere fact that it has 

 been found some distance away from business premises, is not 

 of itself sufficient to characterise it as indigenovis. The only 

 real proof that it is such, is the finding it in one or other of its 

 stages, preferably an immature specimen, still in the pupal 

 chamber. 



Similarly, every year specimens of Sir ex gigas are brought 

 to me, some of them having been taken in country lanes on the 

 outskirts of the town, but there is not the faintest reason for 

 supposing them indigenous to the district. Timber for pit 

 props is in abundance all over the district, and so are fruiterers' 

 hampers, in which Gracilia minuta and Leptidea brevipennis 

 are imported into the country. — E. G. Bayford. 



MOLL US CA. 

 Colonization of Helicella virgata at Hubbard's Hills, 

 Louth. — In my notes on ' Mollusca of Hubbard's Valley ' in 

 The Naturalist,' February 1904, I recorded that in the Autumn 

 of 1900, I deposited about half-a-dozen living specimens of Heli- 

 cella virgata on the grassy slope at the south end of the hills, 

 in the hope that a colony might be established. This high bank 

 is on the outcrop of the Lower Chalk, and the predominating 

 plants on the area where the molluscs were deposited are rest- 

 harrow, rock-rose and knapweed. Nothing was seen of the 

 molluscs until the 12th of August, 1902, when one example 

 was found. Four years again elapsed without any record of 

 them. On October 3, 1906, I saw four living and two dead ; 

 on February 18, 1907, I found three dead shells ; on October 

 17, 1907, three living ones were seen by Mr. V. Howard. On 

 September 3, 1908, I counted twenty-three living specimens, 

 and on September 19, 1909, I counted fifty-three living on an 

 area about twelve feet square. How many more there might 



igog Oct. I. 



