258 [November, 



him, but until this one I have not had an opportunity of doing so, when I spent 

 September 7th and 8th with him in search of this species. During the daytime we 

 beat the ground well, but without result ; but as darkness set in on the 7th Mr. 

 Eggleton was rewarded with a fine specimen (making his sixth of the season). My 

 first ea}jture was upon the 8th, and in quick succession I boxed five fine specimens, 

 he only taking one that evening. During the following week we secured about 

 twenty specimens, but many of them were worn. — James J. F. X. King, 2u7, Sau- 

 chiehall Street, Glasgow : October, 1894. 



Scarcity of Lepidoptera. — I do not think I can recollect a season in which 

 Lepidoptera have been as scarce as the present. Sugar has been a perfect failure. 

 Wight after night I have spread the sweets, only to find them despised ; even such 

 abundant species as X. polyodon and T. pronuba were few in number, and as to 

 varieties there were none. Last year dark X. polyodon were numerous, this year I 

 have only met with one ; however, there is always some compensation, and mine 

 has been that I have added to vnj Arinagli list Orgyia antiqua, of which I captured 

 a (J specimen in Mullinure on September 8th, and to-day I succeeded in taking 

 some nice white forms of Peronea variegana ; P. perplexana, however, is not in its 

 usual plenty. I presume we must blame the damp, sunless summer for the paucity 

 of Lepidopterous fauna, and to this there is added an early autumn with peculiarly 

 cold nights.— W. F. Johnson, Armagh : September ISth, 1894. 



Phylloxera punctata, Licht., at Hereford. — Without knowing its name, I have 

 for a dozen years or so had a bowing acquaintance with this insect as a rather per- 

 nicious form of blight on some young oak trees at Burghill. This autumn I was 

 struck with its abundance on many large oak ti-ees at Stoke Edith, to which it gave 

 quite a yellow and sickly hue in mid-September. Mr. Douglas, with the assent of 

 Mr. Buckton, kindly supplies the name as above. At Burghill the leaves of our 

 large oak trees are at present quite free from this species, but have still some common 

 green Aphis, and are of a dark green colour, rendered even deeper by a thick sooty 

 coating of the carbonized (?) honey-dew of earlier Aphides. The leaves of the small 

 trees to which at Burghill, as far as my observation is trustworthy, the Phylloxera 

 has always been confined, are yellowish, the site of every specimen being a distinct 

 yellow spot, the effect on the leaf-tissues being vastly more pernicious than the work 

 of the common green fly. I imagine the Phylloxera is longer lived, and continues 

 its work at the same point for a longer period. This would not, however, explain 

 the difference, as the green fly makes up for more than this by excessive numbers. 

 The work of the Phylloxera suggests poisoning as well as drainage of sap. — T. A. 

 Chapman, Firbank, Hereford : September, 1894. 



Aepophilus Po7inairei, Sign., in the Isle of Wight. — On June 27th last I 

 captured two larvse of this insect at Totland Bay, in the Isle of Wight. They were 

 clinging to the lower surface of very large, deeply embedded stones on the beach, 

 just below high water mark, in company with Aepus marinus and A. Sobini, and Micra- 

 lymma brevipenne. The mature insect is probably not to be met with earlier than 

 the month of August. The recorded British localities for Aepophilus are Cornwall, 

 Plymouth and Lyme Eegis. — Gr. C. Champion, Horsell, Woking : October I3th, 1894. 



