138 • [November, 



but although I climbed to the top of the tree and tried every plan I could think of 

 to obtain them, not a specimen could be secured, nor even seen closely enough to 

 make sure of the species, which, nevertheless, I felt certain must be w-album. No 

 record of its occurrence in Norfolk, either before or since, has reached me, and my 

 surprise may therefore be imagined when my son, going down stairs early one 

 morning in July, spied a specimen sitting on the outside of one of the front windows 

 of this house, and secured it. It is in good condition, and can hardly have flown 

 far, but the weather was bad, and we did not discover its habitat, although wych 

 elms are common enough here. I have not had a larva of the species for years, and 

 it could not have been reared by us. 



This pretty little butterfly seems to have been unusually plentiful this year in 

 its known localities. Mr. Perkins writes me that it was in thousands in the Wilt- 

 shire Woods when he went down, but worn. Half-a-dozen each were to be seen on 

 many flower heads of ragwort and privet, it was also all over the blossoming limes 

 and the foliage of sunny bushes. — Id. 



Food-plant of Cramhus fascelinellus. — A visit to Yarmouth a few weeks ago 

 furnished satisfactory evidence that Crambus fascelinellus is still holding its own 

 on that coast. The season had evidently been against it, for not only was it late in 

 emerging, but apparently some of the larvae had not been able to feed up. We 

 found several which appeared to be about to pass another winter in the larva state. 



The grass (Triticum junceum) at the roots of which I formerly found them, 

 appears to be very much less common than it used to be, but the insect has found a 

 substitute in a very much more local grass (Aira canescens) which is common there, 

 and among the roots of which the larva-tubes and empty cocoons were found, as 

 well as the few living larvae. The moths fade almost directly they emerge, and very 

 few showed any brightness of colouring. 



lEubolia lineolata was common among the Galium, and supplied pretty va- 

 rieties, and Agrotis prcecox was more frequent than usual under the overhanging 

 tufts of grass roots. — Id. 



Variations of Agrotis cursoria. — I am more than ever pleased with the 

 charming forms of this insect which I find on the Norfolk coast. The most striking 

 variety is perhaps that which, having no trace of the usual brown clouding, is of a 

 lovely pale fawn or soft drab colour, with the orbicular and reniform stigmata clear 

 yellowish-white, the spaces outside and between them black-brown, the claviform 

 stigma and a basal streak black, and a broad whitish stripe along the costa. Another, 

 much rarer, has the whole wing tinged with slate colour, with the orbicular and 

 reniform stigmata whitish ; another wholly pale straw colour, except that the two 

 stigmata just mentioned are white, as is the costal margin, and the claviform stigma 

 blackish. In many cases the median 'nervure is white to the middle, or even to the 

 margin. Another pretty form is of the more ordinary drab colour, but without 

 brown clouding, and having the first and second line distinctly blackish. Hardly 

 two specimens are alike,' and the varieties run into each other and into the typical 

 form, which here is not the commonest. — Id. 



