217 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



YORKSHIRE SPECIES OF THE Hydrccciil nictUaUS GROUP. 



As all lepidopterists are now aware, the species of Hydrcecia, 

 which until recent years always stood in our collections as 

 nictitans only, has, owing to the study of the genitalia, been 

 split up into the four species — nictitans, paludis, lucens and 

 crinanensis. Of these, only nictitans is as yet known to occur 

 in our own county, but as all four are already recorded for 

 Lancashire — three of them not uncommonly — there is little 

 doubt that we have others ; indeed, probably all of them. 

 I am therefore anxious that during the present season, our 

 Yorkshire lepidopterists shall settle the matter by collecting a 

 few specimens from as many localities as possible. Paludis 

 is partial to sand-hills and salt-marshes, and will probably 

 be found at Spurn and similar districts. Lucens occurs on 

 ' mosses,' and other marshy places, and should be found on 

 Thorne Waste, Riccall Common, etc., and possibly on the 

 boggy parts of our moorlands, whilst crinanensis has as yet 

 always been associated with running water, though that very 

 likely is more a coincidence than anything else. Nictitans 

 seems to occur everywhere on more or less dry agricultural 

 land. The species comes freely to ragwort flowers in August, 

 and so are easily collected. — G. T. P. 



THE AGE OF SHREWS. 



In ' A Hypothesis as to the cause of the Autumnal Epidemic 

 of the Common and the Lesser Shrew, with some Notes on their 

 Habits,' by Mr. Lionel E. Adams (' Memoirs and Proc. Man- 

 chester Lit. and Phil. Soc.', Vol. LIV., pt. 2, x., pp. 1-13), the 

 author arrives at the somewhat startling conclusion that 

 ' the autumnal " epidemic " is due to nothing more than old 

 age ; old age in the case of the Common and the Lesser Shrew 

 being reached in, roughly, thirteen or fourteen months.' 



NEW METHOD OF MOUNTING COLEOPTERA, ETC. 



Coleopterists have long had to resort to the inconvenient 

 method of mounting their smaller specimens on cards, which 

 results in the ventral surfaces being hidden ; pinning the 

 specimens, of course, being out of the question, excepting in the 

 case of the larger species. In ' The Entomologist ' for May, 

 Mr. F. H. Moore describes some thin gelatine mounts, which 

 certainly seem to have advantage over the old method, as the 

 under surfaces of the objects can readily be examined. The 



1910 June I. P 



