﻿Motes, captures, etc. 6T 



necessitated my confining my sugaring-grounds to the trees surrounding 

 our house, and in our own neighbour's garden. There is a tolerably good 

 variety, comprising elm, lime, poplar, willow (Salix alba), with hedges of 

 hawthoi'n and blackthorn. In some years my sugar-patches rendered a 

 good return of moths, my captures numbering about fifty different species. 

 Now, for three or four years past, night after night, sugaring has been almost 

 of no avail. Can it be a case of inherited instinct? and are the rising gene- 

 rations of moths getting too wise to be trapped by the sugaring baits? 

 The evolutionists tell us many wonderful stories ; can they help us to 

 arrive at some conclusion in this instance? Why is it that certain species 

 of Lepidoptera are so rare ? Is it to be attributed to the female laying but 

 a limited number of eggs, to a delicate constitution in the larva and pupa, 

 to more than ordinarily persistent attacks from ichneumon flies and other 

 enemies, or, more probably, from a want of knowledge of the habits 

 of these species ? In the year 1878 I had the good fortune to capture at 

 sugar the specimen of Leucania albipuncta mentioned in my list. The 

 late Mr. Buckler was very anxious to obtain ova, and asked me to do my 

 best in procuring some for him. In company with a friend, I have yearly 

 made a strict search in hope of finding another, but without success. 

 Again, in the case of Laphygma exigua, taken here in a clover-field by my 

 brother last year ; although we tramped the same field day after day, over 

 and over again, both last year and this, not another was to be seen. It is 

 easier to understand why some insects should be local; this may arise 

 from the food-plants being confined to definite areas ; but why a moth, 

 capable, I should suppose, of by no means a long-sustained flight, such as 

 these two species, should turn up only here and there singly, remains to me 

 inexplicable. We cannot, I think, conceive that these, like the swift and 

 strong-winged Sphingidae, which perhaps often are so, are immigrants from 

 distant lands ; there can be little doubt of their being " true-born Britons " ; 

 and it seems to me likely that many species are rare, mainly on account of 

 some particular and curious habit of concealment of which we are not 

 cognisant. — Joseph Anderson, Jun. ; Chichester. 



Sugaring seems to have been rather a failure this season in most 

 places ; but in South Devon, where I was staying early in September, I 

 found it by no means unproductive. Some twelve common species of 

 Noctuae were abundant, while a few specimens turned up of Noctua 

 glareosa, &c, and one each of Thyatira batis, Hydracia micacea, Noctua 

 umbrosa, and Luperina cespitis. A few common Geometridae, such as 

 Cidaria truncata and Lareutia viridaria, also came to the sugared patches. 

 All these were taken from six or eight trees skirting the north-west side of 

 a wood. The moon was shining during each of the six nights that I 

 sugared, which were for the most part cloudless. — E. M. Prideaux ; 

 9> Vyvyan Terrace, Clifton, Bristol. 



Forcing pup^e of D. galii.— In the ' Entomologist,' xxii. p. 202, I 

 read the words, " By all means force your galii pupse." Not being the 

 fortunate possessor of galii in pupae at the time, I obtained three, as much 

 for the experiment as otherwise. I commenced forcing under the direc- 

 tions given by Mr. J. Arkle, placing my pupse under a glass, beneath 

 which I placed a small thermometer, keeping the whole near a fire. The 

 highest temperature reached 120° Fahc, the lowest 40°. I placed my 

 three pupae beneath the glass on Nov. 11th, and on Dec. 15th the first 

 emergence took place, the second on the 26th, the third on the 30th of the 



