1889.] 305 



are furnished with fine silky setae ; beneath the anal segment there is a plate 

 furnished with two comparatively long, fleshy prominences, which serve as prolegs ; 

 these are quite invisible from above ; the insect has the power of retracting them at 

 apex, so that they appear somewhat bifid when it begins to move, and they probably 

 assist it largely in its somewhat rapid motions ; legs short, but plainly visible from 

 above, fossorial, setose, furnished with dark spines or spinose prominences, four 

 spines and a small prominence on the tibiae, two prominences on the femora, and one 

 on the trochanters ; the arrangement of these spines would probably afford a 

 valuable character for distinguishing the larvae of the different allied genera ; they 

 are, for instance, sharp and much less strong (as might be expected from the habits 

 of the larvae) in the case of Tenebrio than in Opatrum and Phaleria ; the legs are 

 terminated by a single claw. 



The larva above described appears to be found with the perfect 

 insect in sand under sea- weed and shore refuse ; when disturbed it 

 feigns death, and lies perfectly motionless for some time ; under a 

 high power, however, it will be noticed that the antennae and usually 

 the legs are constantly quivering, and immediately the insect thinks 

 the danger is past, it turns quickly over and burrows rapidly into the 

 sand, and soon disappears from view. 



Lincoln : May, 1889. 



Noctuce at sugar in Norfolk. — To say that one has almost given up sugaring, 

 seems like an admission of advancing years ; so when Mr. Atmore reported last 

 June that Noctuce. were thronging to the sugar as in the good old times, it was with 

 a feeling as though renewing one's youth that I " shook off dull sloth " and brought 

 the long neglected sugar-pot again into requisition. No very wonderful captures 

 rewarded us, but I took — what I have wished to take for many a year — a fine speci- 

 men of the grey southern form of Aplecta occulta, and this I consider no contemptible 

 prize. The same evening furnished one Cymatophora ocularis- — on a poplar tree, of 

 course. Another evening, and in a different place, an unusual variety of Aplecta 

 nebulosa was secured ; mottled all over with grey markings, except that the two 

 transverse lines were white. As these lines are usually obscure in this species, the 

 specimen had a very singular appearance, something like Polia Jlavocincta. Strange 

 to say, we saw but one other specimen of this usually common species. Cymato- 

 phora duplaris was also very scarce, but one specimen occurred, entirely of a dark 

 brown, though nothing like so dark as the northern and hill variety. Leucania 

 pudorina and Orthosia suspecta also occurred, and Caradrina alsines was rather 

 common. By sugaring on low plants at the edge of the mud flats along the coast I 

 secured a very fine series of Mamestra abjecta. Here also occurred black and 

 streaked varieties of Agrotis corticea, and various odd forms of A. exclamationis, 

 some with large stigmata, or with them united, or having the transverse lines 

 unusually distinct, or with the ground colour dappled with paler, also a specimen of 

 the pretty variety of A. nigricans, formerly called Marshallana. A single specimen 

 of Hadena suasa also turned up with common things "too numerous to mention." 



C C 



