1893.] ■ 165 



afternoon sunshine. Sypsipetes impluviafa among the alders — beautifully variable too, 

 black and greenish-black — forms which if placed alone in a box, without the more 

 ordinary ones, would puzzle any one. But L. littoralis, how abundant to be sure ! 

 nearly full fed. On the sand rush after dark we collected some four or five hundred 

 on a comparatively few hummocks, and considering there were miles of these 

 hummocks, the number of the larvae must be enormous. We carried them away in 

 a large muslin sleeve, from which they immediately began to bite their way out. 

 The work proved interesting, and I lost my train. The house where I slept that 

 night was on the side of a hill, and in the morning I stepped out of my bedroom 

 window on to a hillside covered with a small wood, chiefly beech, which served to 

 amuse me till time for the early train into Swansea. A colony of Tephrosia hiundu- 

 laria was here, about eighty per cent, of which were beautiful black, or brown-black, 

 with intermediates of grey or greyish-brown down to the ordinary pale form, these 

 latter proving quite rare. A fine female Stauropus fagi also was on one of the small 

 trees. A day or so after I found several more fagi among some beeches a mile or so 

 further on. Macroglossa honihyliformis was common in meadows near Swansea, 

 flying to flowers of Pedicularis and Ajuga. Chelonia plantaginis common in the 

 same meadows, almost my first acquaintance with this species, strange to say. The 

 queer little Rydrelia unca starting up from the rushes and long grass in the damper 

 parts, never till the sun was out. Nola cristulalis, commoner than at Reading, more 

 black biundularia, and dark forms of T. punctulata, on the trees neai', are perhaps 

 worth mentioning. A friend who was out with me one day took a Sesia sphegifor- 

 mis in an alder plantation ; I had not heard of it for Wales before. One thing 

 seems to be always abundant at Swansea, that is Bombyx riibi. Every year when I 

 go down there is B. ruhi rushing about Sketty Park and the fields around it, each 

 night for the last hour and a half before the sun goes down — not one moth now and 

 then, but lively groups in mad career. The larvae of this species feed with us on 

 heath, but at Swansea they probably feed on the coarse grass so abundant there, 

 among which I have taken the female at dusk laying its eggs. Capt. Robinson had 

 grand success with his moth traps during my stay ; they kept him in almost a 

 constant supply of rarities, good species and varieties difficult to be got in other 

 ways. One night he had the greater part of the Prominents, besides other good 

 things. Moth traps will not work with me living in the town where there are so 

 many lights, but any one living where they can place the traps in a good wild place 

 near a wood, like Capt. Robinson's is, should rig some up at once — there is no doubt 

 about the success. — Id. 



A gynandromorphous Smerinthus populi. — On May 24th, from one of my pupae 

 which I had kept all the winter, a poplar hawk moth (-S. populi) emerged, which 

 was neither male nor female, but both ; on its left side it had a male antenna and a 

 small wing like the male, on the right side a female antenna and a large wing like 

 the female. The under wings were crippled, and one was covered by a small bit of 

 membrane. Can you explain this ? — S. C. Beown, 10, Pevensey Road, St. Leonards- 

 on-Sea : May 3lsi, 1893. 



[The piece of membrane on the hind-wing was a fragment of that enveloping 

 the moth within the pupa skin, and from which it had not freed itself in emerging. 

 —Eds.]. 



