NOTES ON COLLECTING. 61 
male in the nieasurements of the body, pronotum and elytra. Large 
black ants, the workers of the species, Camponotus ligniperdus (I 
believe), are swarming in great numbers over our supply of wood at 
the Villa Pagello, conspicuous by their longish lees and rather short 
antenne. 
February 19th.—After two days of rain and ae the sun was very 
hot. this afternoon, making us begin to think of sun helmets. 
Descending the slopes of Monte Berico on the western side, I found 
the fresh males of G. rhamni in perfect condition and in greater 
numbers, with no females flying as yet, thus further pointing to my 
belief that these males are all an early spring brood, and not hibernated 
specimens. If anything, they appear to be slightly smaller than the 
usual July emergence. Grasshoppers were numerous and many were 
apparently in freshly emerged condition, especially Stauroderus bicolor, - 
which is perhaps the most abundant and widely distributed Huropean 
grasshopper, and very variable in colour; the prevailing form here is 
brownish, though one fine fresh specimen I took to-day was strongly 
marked with red. A fine brownish-grey larva of Phragmatobia jult- 
ginosa was enjoying the hot sun at the very top of a high wall. A 
few of the solitary bees were flying about the hill-sides and settling on 
the pretty purple blossoms of Anemone coronaria. Amongst these | 
took specimens of Nomada solidaginis. This insect frequents the 
flowers of the fields and deposits its eggs in the nests of various 
other species of its own order, the Hymenoptera. I also took a 
specimen of the allied solitary bee Coelioays quadridentata. This 
Species is not rare on the flowers of the Papilionaceae, on the large 
umbelliferous tribe, and on some of the Labiate tribe, and lays its 
eggs in the cells of other solitary bees. A considerable number of 
specimens of Coccinella septempunctata were crawling about on various 
plants. It is very common everywhere in Italy, in fields, kitchen 
gardens and cultivated lands. 
February 24th.—The very hot sun has brought out the apparently 
fresh females of G. rhamni, and I took two in the most perfect con- 
dition, one of which was surrounded by four males as she settled 
on the ivy leaves round a tree stump. Four males and one female, 
all in perfect condition, in my net at one stroke, is my record, for 
this butterfly, at any rate. Odd bright yellow flowers of Ranunculus 
bulbosus are standing out noticeably erect to-day on the hill-sides after 
the fresh rain, and will shortly be out in profusion. 
February 25th.—This morning, on the well in the garden of the 
Villa Pagello, I took a specimen of the small apterous Megoplistus 
brunneus, a small elongated insect of delicate appearance, with very 
slender antenne, and distinguished among crickets by the armature 
of the hind tibiw, which bear a fine serrulation instead of spines; it 
has oval-shaped eyes, and general chestnut colour. This afternoon the 
imagines of Apis mellifica were crowding to the purple-blue blossoms 
of the beautiful Anemone coronaria. A grass snake of grey-black colour 
scuttled away under a mass of dead leaves before I could diagnose it 
further, and as | was returning home in the duller part of the after- 
noon before rain fell, two specimens of Macroglossum stellatarum were 
swiftly searching the blossoms of Anemone coronaria, but I was unable 
to observe the condition of the wings of this moth, which appears in 
Italy very commonly throughout the fine season in two or more 
broods. 
