CURRENT NOTES. 193 



be, firstly, the absence of any incentive among collectors to breed the 

 species, owing to the ease with which the imago can be captured, and 

 secondly, the difficulty of guessing at the right pabulum among the 

 great variety of plants generally growing in the localities haunted by 

 this species. — Alfred Sich, F.E.S., 65, Barrowgate Eoad, Chiswick. 

 May 23rd, 1900. 



@^URRENT NOTES. 



At the meeting of the Ent. Soc. of London, on May 2nd, the Eev. 

 Theodore Wood exhibited a specimen of Carabits auratus, L., taken in 

 either June or September, 1898, by Mr. Ferrand, of Littlefield House, 

 Exmouth, on the Haldon Hills, in the neighbourhood of that town. 

 Mr. McLachlan also exhibited an example of lihinocypha fidgidipemns, 

 Guerin, a brilliant little dragon-fly of the subfamily Caloptcryfjinac, a 

 native of Cochin China, which, so far as he knew, had not been 

 captured since prior to 1830. It had been in M. Guerin's hands, and 

 Mr. McLachlan had received it from M. Bene Oberthiir. 



At the same meeting Dr. T. A. Chapman exhibited various speci- 

 mens illustrating Acanthopsyche opaccUa ; fresh females showing the 

 six nearly complete rings of silky wool with which she is clothed ; 

 specimens preserved in cop., showing the exact position of the male 

 moth in the female case, and the position of the two moths in relation 

 to the female pupa-case. It was incidentally mentioned that the 

 inflation of the male abdomen with air was observed to be the main 

 force employed in advancing the male abdomen into position, and 

 that observation of the immature wing threw considerable light on 

 the real neuration in this species. 



At the same meeting Mr. Barrett exhibited specimens of Heterocera 

 destructive to the fruit crops of South Africa. Among them Sphinyo- 

 morpha monteironis, Butl., known as the Fruit Moth in Cape Colony — 

 a bold and powerful insect, with a sucking tongue strong enough to 

 pierce the sound skin of a peach or fig. The presence of a light does 

 not appear to disturb it, so that examination of its methods can be 

 readily made, when it can be seen that it does not take advantage of 

 the natural opening into a fig, or of a crack or other injury to a peach, 

 but deliberately pierces a hole which afterwards shoAVS as a small round 

 spot, from which decay invariably results. It seems a matter of 

 indifference to the moth whether the fruit has fallen, or is on the tree, 

 ripe or unripe. With regard to Achaea lienanli and Serrodes inara, 

 the two species are restless and timid, and, therefore, more difficult to 

 observe. In the present season, however, both have been extremely 

 abundant, and have been seen at apparently uninjured fruit, so that it 

 seems they are capable of equal destruction, and this is the more 

 probable, as all the species alike are provided with somewhat saw-like 

 teeth toward the tip of each section of the sucking apparatus. 



Mr. W. A. Luff has now given us an up-to-date list of The Insects 

 of Alderney. It occupies 23 pp., and includes all the orders that have 

 been worked, and the additions, made by Mr. E. D. Marquand recently, 

 are highly suggestive of what still remains to be done before it can be 

 really said that the fauna of the Channel Islands is known. Hitherto 

 Mr. Luff has worked almost alone, helped only in Guernsey by the 



