NOTES ON COLLEOTING. 139 
beginning of May. They appeared suddenly in swarms, and when I 
was out on Ascension Day, I saw the butterflies in hundreds feeding 
on the flowers of Clover, Pittosporum, etc. They were to be seen 
everywhere; in the plain, along the shore, and on the hills. These 
cardut, although not fresh, were in fairly good condition. They 
looked as if they might have left the pupa 15 or 20 days before their 
arrival here. The question is: ‘‘ Where did they come from?” I 
have seen a similar swarm on the Hauts Plateaux in Algeria, in May, 
and they were in avout the same condition as those we had here a 
month ago. I fancy they must come from very far south, from the 
Sahara or the Soudan perhaps. The new arrivals laid their eggs on 
artichoke, on thistles, and on mallows. The artichoke fields in the 
plain of Hyéres have been stripped bare by the larve, but the loss to 
gardeners is not very great, as the flower-heads were fully developed 
before the plague appeared, and most of them had been cut by the 
end of May. Millions of larve must have starved for want of food. 
The roads in the plain at the beginning of June were absolutely 
covered with them, rushing wildly along in search of more food, 
everything available having been eaten up. The gardeners were very 
much concerned about this mass of caterpillars, thinking they would 
attack cultivated plants other than artichoke. Many of them came to 
me about it and I found it difficult to convince them that they need 
have no fear of this. Flying with the cardui at the beginning of May 
were large numbers of Plusia gamma and Nomophila noctuella. 
The P. gamma were probably immigrants, but it seems hardly 
likely that N. mnoctuella can have come a long distance, or 
that it can have crossed the Mediterranean. I wonder if the 
flight of P. cardui reached England? It would be interesting to 
know. There will soon be a great emergence of P. cardui on the 
Riviera. Perhaps another flight north may take place, starting this 
time from §. Kurope.—Harotp Powent, Hyeéres. June, 1918. 
British Leprorrera, Von. I.—With reference to Kimpton, Dorset, 
mentioned in the notes by Mr. Parkinson-Curtis on British Lepidoptera, 
Vol. I. in the June Hntom. Record, possibly this may mean Kimpton, 
Hants, nearest railway station, Weyhill, on the Midland and South 
Western Joint Ry. It is near Bulford and Tidworth, and possibly on 
the borders of Dorset.—L. EH. Dunster, 44, St. John’s Wood Terrace, 
Regents Park, N.W.8. 
Harty Norzs rrom Onear, — As in 1916 the oak trees in this 
part of Essex are almost denuded of their leaves from the ravages of 
spring larve, although not quite to the same extent as in May of that 
year. 
The vast majority of the larve are those of a grey sawfly and 
Tortria viridana, although Cheimatobia brumata and various Hibernia 
species are also in great force. Among these Hylophila bicolorana 
has appeared in unusually large numbers. I beat, a few large oak 
trees in open fields on the evening of May 26th, and in half-an-hour 
or less had obtained thirty larve. These commenced to pupate at 
once and two evenings later the same amount of beating on similar 
trees resulted in 13 only. I put the difference in quantity down to 
pupation, as by this time more than half of the larve of May 26th had 
