CURRENT NOTES, 185 



number discusses (1) the rose flea-beetle, Haltica probata, which will 

 probably prove a pest on cultivated plants ; (2) a small whip-scorpion, 

 Trithyreus pentapeltis, on the tibia of which are very long fine hairs or 

 set® set in little pits, one on each leg and two on the fore-legs ; 

 (3) Notes on Chalcid Flies ; (4) two interesting Pseudoscorpions ; (5) 

 a considerable amount of marine zoology ; and (6) an account of the 

 Summer School at Laguna Beach and its work, with views of the 

 neighbourhood under investigation. The magazine is to be commended 

 for the number and clearness of its very numerous diagrams and 

 illustrations which enlighten every article. 



The Entonwlogist for April contains detailed contributions 

 concerning the new species of Geometer, of which examples were 

 exhibited at the Annual Exhibition of Varieties of the South London 

 Entomological Society in December last. It has now been recorded 

 in N. Devon, E. Devon and Cornwall, and always in very swampy 

 parts of dark woods, and in company with Lampropteryx suffumata, 

 from which it differs in size, shape of wing, general facies, number of 

 broods, time of appearance, food-plant (not yet known), genitalia, and 

 absence of intermediate forms. 



In the Bull. Soc. ent. France for March, M. J. de Joannis records 

 that Lyonetia clerckella has been met with in the larval state in the 

 leaves of Primus laurocerasus, at Lisieux, which accords with a previous 

 record by M. Joannis himself. M. A. L. Clement records and 

 describes a new form of Polygonia c-album as ab. cloqueti from Bouray ; 

 a melanistic form in which the black spots on all wings are confluent on 

 each wing in a large blotch with a single large discoidal on the fore- 

 wings, and the c-mark on the underside much modified. From the 

 figure it would appear to much resemble some of the forms produced 

 under cold conditions. 



The h-ish Naturalist for April contains the Presidential Address of 

 Prof. G. H. Carpenter to the Dublin Naturalist's Field Club, in which 

 he gave some of his own reminiscences to "illustrate how frequently 

 studies which the naturalist pursues for the love of them may turn out 

 to be useful in the economic sense; how frequently, too, a piece of work 

 undertaken for the sake of medecine or agriculture may lead the 

 investigator into paths of high theoretical interest." As an instance 

 we may quote the following interesting paragraph, " More than twenty 

 years ago, my visit with some of the members to the Mitchelstown 

 Cave led me first to take an interest in those lowly wingless insects, 

 the ' springtails ' or Collembola, several blind species of which are 

 included in our Irish cave fauna. At that time beyond a few 

 observations there was nothing to show that the insects had any 

 economic importance, and the severely practical man might have 

 thought that an entomologist, in devoting days and months to their 

 systematic study, was hopelessly wasting his time. During the present 

 century, however, it has been found both in Ireland and in Britain 

 that several kinds of Springtails are very harmful to roots and other 

 underground plant-structures, to fallen fruit and to foliage. It is 

 reasonable to suppose that the comparatively sudden rise of the 

 Collembola to importance as injurious insects is'not due to want of 

 observation in former years, but to an actual change in the mode of 

 life of the species observed. Thus the study of an obscure group of 

 insects ia found to have an unexpected economic bearing, ancl the 



