50 [February, 



A "plague of caterpillars.'" — When I arrived at Haslemere in the latter part 

 of May last, I was promptly informed that there was " a plague of caterpillars this 

 year." And truly it looked so ! From every tree and bush they were swinging in 

 multitudes. One poor woman who came into the town to do her marketing declared 

 that she must go home round the woods, several miles further, for she could not go 

 back along the lanes " through all those caterpillars." Her feeling on the subject 

 was not unreasonable, they walked all over one, and the first sensation of the grip 

 of the anterior-feet of a fine large Oeometra larva on the back of one's neck is more 

 si^rprising than agreeable. The tremendous rain of the night of the 26th brought 

 myriads to the ground, from which they lost no time in returning to the trees by 

 way of the trunks, but in the open woods they found the low bushes of hazle, oak, 

 birch, &e., even more convenient, and in a few days these were utterly stripped, the 

 leaves being mere ribs, and presenting a melancholy — not to say " dreadfully untidy " 

 — spectacle. The larvae were, of course, mainly Hibernia, Cheimatobia, Oporabia, 

 the commoner species of the TaniocampidcB, and other abundant winter and spring 

 species, but such better species as Taniocampa miniosa were very far from scarce, 

 and any one with plenty of spare time and conveniences might have done consider- 

 able larva-rearing in that district this year. — Id. : December 9th, 1889. 



Eupithecia extensaria paired in captivity. — I think that this grand "pug" may 

 now be considered well established on our coast, though still excessively local in its 

 distribution. The larvae of the autumn of 1888, fed up most satisfactorily, and 

 spun their tough cocoons on the surface of the sand. The hot spring stimulated the 

 appearance of the moths so much, that there seemed good hopes of a second brood 

 (which I need hardly say were, in so cold a summer, disappointed). In two cases 

 they paired, and the females laid their eggs on plants of Artemisia tied down with 

 gauze, but the larvae fed very slowly, and only went into pupa a short time before 

 those taken at large in the autumn. They were not at all particular about being 

 supplied with flowers of the Artemisia, which, indeed, were not obtainable until 

 autumn, but fed quite as freely upon the leaves. As before, they have made tough 

 cocoons of silk and sand on the surface. 



The moths reared this year were even larger, I think, than those of last year, 

 and well support the chai-acter of the species for beauty. 



I am often asked whether I believe extensaria to be a true Utipithecia : its tri- 

 angular form and oblique stripes giving it so distinguished an appearance. I can. 

 only say to those who see it alive with its wings widely spread, and pressed close to 

 the surface upon which it i-ests, and its abdomen curled up as in subnotaia, there 

 seems little doubt of its proper location. I think it closely allied to nanata and 

 subnotata. — Id. 



The genus Scoparia. — Mr. E. E. Bankes, in Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. i, p. V (new 

 scries), announces as the result of his inspection of a series of S. atomalis, from 

 Perthshire, that for the futiu'c atomalis must lose its specific rank. This quite con- 

 firms the opinion that I expressed in 1885 on precisely similar grounds, in the 

 Entomologist, vol. xviii, p. 130, where I added, " apparently distinct as these two 

 so-called specimens ai-e, if extreme specimens only are contrasted, yet intermediate 

 specimens of every possible degree of gradation are familiar to us all, and who can 



