1890.] 301 



common on the south coast, and yet absent (apparently) from the extreme south- 

 west, and also from wide ranges of the east coast, it yet should be common on that 

 of Cheshire and Lancashire. The mountains of Wales and the hills of the Midlands 

 seemed to offer a barrier on the south, and no one would, I presume, believe in its 

 arrival by way of Ireland ! But if it manages to hold its own, even in the smallest 

 numbers, on this coast, the difficulty is explained, and the climatic conditions which 

 caused its increase at Dover would then have a similar effect here. I think it right 

 to put this evidence, as it has been offei-ed to me, on record. As in the south of 

 England, the reared specimens are smaller than those from abroad, but the occasional 

 captured specimens in the local collections are of fair size. — C. G. Barrett, 39, 

 Linden Grove, Nunhead, S.E. : September Ibth, 1890. 



Lepidoptera upon Coast Sandhills. — The scarcity of Noctuce upon the Sandhills 

 of both East and West Coasts this season has been extraordinary. My son went to 

 Hunstanton in August to get me some Agrotis cursoria, and in the course of a long 

 search found one specimen. I worked during the later portions of the afternoons of 

 several days on the Lancashire and Cheshire coast, and did not see one ! In this 

 latter district A. prcecox is usually ratlier common, but I only secured three, each on 

 a different day. Even A. valligera and A. tritici were extremely scarce, and of 

 Trlphcena pronuha, T. orbona, Xylophasia polyodon and Caradrina cubicularis, I 

 may possibly have seen, in all, a dozen each ! 



Curiously enough, the more delicate looking insects were not nearly so scarce. 

 Late in the season as it was, I took some nice Melanippe galiata and found Eubolia 

 lineolata in comparative plenty. On one fairly pleasant evening I secured a fine 

 series of tlie very local Peronea permutana among Rosa spinosissima, and found 

 jP. aspersaiia and Spilonota incarnatana {amcenana) common. 



I went down with a sanguine expectation of obtaining a fresh series of Lasio- 

 campa trifolii for the cabinet, knowing how plentiful it used to be on that coast, but 

 was awfully disappointed ; not one did I see alive. A sad tale is told, and I fear 

 that it is true. It is said that a young and thoughtless collector, having obtained 

 some duplicates of Papilio Machaon, and thereby set all his schoolboy friends and 

 fellow collectors longing for them, made a bargain, that for a fixed number (forty, I 

 think) of larvfB of Lasiocampa trifolii he would give a " swallow tail." The school- 

 boys spread themselves over the district, and hundreds of trifolii larvae were brought 

 in and duly paid for as agreed. These were sent all over the country in exchange, 

 and would doubtless have filled up an aching void in many a collection, but for the 

 perversity of the larvae, which do not love the post, and decline to feed up when 

 removed from the seaside ; but from that time trifolii has almost disappeared from 

 the Liverpool district. 



This year, however, a few larvae were found, and the attractions of one or two 

 of the reared females were utilized to secure a few more males. Mr. Harker de- 

 scribed their flight to me as very swift and strongly undulating or " jumping." In 

 this they must resemble L. rnbi. They flew from 7 to 8 p.m., but only assembled 

 to the females at the latter hour, and then but for a few minutes. They would only 

 come on favourable evenings, and when the weather was very rough were not seen 

 flying at all. — Id. 



