NOTES ON COLLECTING. 217 



respect to the males. But the purpose of this note is to state that, as 

 we were returning, we came across a little pool about a yard across and 

 a foot or so deep, filled with the drainage from a manure heap. On 

 such pools it is a common experience to see a dozen or more dead 

 moths floating, but on the surface of this pool there was such a 

 mass of dead lepidoptera as we had never before seen. Dr. Chapman 

 thought 2000 a very moderate estimate, and they appeared to consist 

 largely of L'idaria immanata, C. populata, Larentia caedata, L. verberata, 

 Cidaria pijraliata, Boarmia repandata, Erebia tyndanis and E. f/oante. 

 There were of course odd examples of many other species, but those 

 named constituted the bulk of the victims. We noticed as we were 

 examining the pool, two or three examples of Erebia (joante and 

 PohionirnatHs cori/dun settle on the surface, and it was clear that they 

 rose with difficulty, especially the specimens of E. f/oantc. This was 

 apparently due to the stickiness of the surface, which clogged the 

 scales, and so prevented the insects from rising again. Once thoroughly 

 soaked, they appeared to sink a considerable distance below the surface 

 into the viscous mass. We have seen small numbers in tan-pits, 

 in the water surrounding gas-tanks, and similar places in England, 

 and in the Cogne valley we once observed large numbers of moths, 

 principally Larentia caesiata and Cidaria popiiktta, drowned in the 

 roadside puddles that had been formed by a heavy storm. These and 

 many similar observations we have already recorded in our paper on 

 " The drinking habits of butterflies and moths," but such a number 

 of drowned insects, that had evidently fallen victims to their appetites, 

 we had never before seen in such a limited space. — Ibid. 



\ 



:^OTES ON COLLECTING, Etc. 



Smerinthus ocellatus two years in the pupal stage. — On June 

 10th I bred a fine female of this species which had lain in pupa for 

 two years. The larva was taken at Brimsdown in 1898, and the pupa 

 when discovered to be likely to lie over was carefully isolated. The 

 imago has a slight tendency towards melanism, but is otherwise 

 typical. The pupa has been kept in a cage which has not been damped 

 for the past eighteen months, and the earth itself is very hard. — E. 

 W. Lane, 9, Teesdale Street, Hackney Road, London, N.E. 



The Food-plants of Oxyptilus distans. — I have just come across a 

 note written some time since by Mr. F. Norgate, Avho bred this species 

 from papjB, which he found in the flower-heads of what he now 

 believes to be Crepis virens, but which he thought at the time was 

 Hieracium umbellatum. One would suspect that Mr. Norgate, or some 

 other of our East Anglian lepidopterists, could give us a life-history 

 of this insect without much trouble. It is surprising that the life- 

 history of a species that has been freely captured for many years, by 

 several lepidopterists, should so far have escaped us. The hfe-history 

 of 0,r)jptiliis parridactjjlm is practically blank, at least no British 

 lepidopterist has given us an account of it, and the life-histories of 

 Aciptilia tetradacfi/la, and A. baliodaetijla are also wanting in many 

 particulars, although they are among our commonest species. — J. W. 

 Tutt. 



Psychides in 1900: a Correction. — I find m.j " Solenobia .' sp." 

 {antea, p. 146) is Xanjeia monilifera [Xysmatodoma melanella); the 



