35 



reported from Devon, Dorset, Wilts, Hants, Sussex, Kent, 

 and Essex. 



The records with regard to Laphygma exigua are more 

 definite. On June 3rd, Mr. Sheldon, while collecting in 

 Cornwall, noted a light-coloured Noctua flying at dusk in 

 some numbers, and the half dozen which he took proved to 

 be L. exigua, in worn, but not ragged, condition (" Entom.,'"' 

 1906, p. 230). In this respect they agreed exactly with 

 P. cardui, and it will be noted that the date on which they 

 were first seen agrees exactly with that on which this species 

 was at its greatest abundance. Autumn records are plentiful 

 enough, showing that this species, usually accounted a rarity, 

 must have occurred in its thousands, its greatest abundance 

 apparently being in Devon and Cornwall, but it is also recorded 

 from Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Hants, Sussex, Surrey, Kent, 

 and Essex. 



These records, fragmentary though they be, and often lack- 

 ing in conciseness, go to show, when pieced together, that 

 the four species under notice have much in common. They 

 are all species having two or more generations in the course 

 of the year, and they all occurred practically at the same 

 time and over the same area — along the southern portions 

 of the kingdom. 



In June, 1900, some few specimens of C olios edusa, Fb., 

 were met with in our southern counties, and in the autumn 

 of that year the species was abundant in many parts of our 

 islands. From experiments in breeding the species, carried 

 out by Messrs. Carpenter, Montgomery, and other members 

 of this Society, it was found that the larva had not the power 

 of hibernating, in the sense that we usually employ that term. 

 So long as climatic conditions were favourable, brood would 

 succeed brood, but upon their becoming unfavourable the 

 brood came to an end ; and it further appeared that in no 

 other stage had the insect the power of prolonging its life 

 over our winter. 



Larvae of L. exigua, and, I believe, H. peltigera also, reared 

 from ova deposited by some of last autumn's moths, behaved 

 in much the same way, showing no disposition to hibernate, 

 probably not possessing the power of doing so, yet feeding 

 up rapidly and producing imagines, but only so long as 

 favourable climatic conditions enabled them to do so. 



From our present knowledge of the subject it would 

 appear that a certain section of the British Lepidopterous 

 fauna, of which the foregoing species are examples, is of a 

 transitory character. If these islands could be shut off from 



