ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 69 



fj^|>My own work daring the season has principally been, delightedly observing the 

 results of Mr. Bice's collecting at electric light. I have thought it would be an excellent 

 method of determining the time of appearance of different species ; and if they were 

 single or double brooded. I was somewhat surprised to see Scoliopteryx libatrix appear 

 in the spring, as I had always regarded it as a strictly fall moth. The specimens were 

 too fresh, and rather late in the season to have hybernated. lYomaphila noctuella I 

 have often wondered about. It appeared about the first thing in spring, in a sadly 

 worn and dilapidated condition ; clearly indicating that it had been sporting in the 

 grass during the warm days of the previous autumn, and continued without intermission 

 to the end of the season. Mr. Felt, Can. Ent., vol. 25, p. 131, says :" There seem to 

 be three broods a year." Bat I suspect that the broods must overlap, as they were 

 never wholly absent. In mid-summer they were unusually plentiful, with an endless 

 variety of ornamentation ; from a uniform light-brown with numerous dark brown dots, 

 to a yellowish -brown with three heavy dark brown transverse bands on their long narrow 

 front wings. 



In the September number of the " Entomologists' Record " is a note on " The 

 Attractiveness of Light," signed W. Grover, Guildford, dated July 9th, 1897, in which, 

 after relating that he had found some colored lights more attractive than ordinary light, 

 enquires "Why is light attractive to the males only of so many species'?" This was an 

 idea new to me, although we had been having some experience on that very line with- 

 out suspecting the cause. In the early part of September, the males of lolype velleda 

 (Fig. 40) were in great abundance, and those of laricis in 

 goodly numbers, Mr. Bice had a pair of velleda of last 

 year's take, but he wanted females of laricis. He knew 

 that the female laricis was light like velleda, but smaller, 

 and he wanted ma to give him the distinguishing marks 

 of female laricis when at rest, as he was tired taking 

 male velledas in a futile attempt to get the female of the 

 other. This I found it very difficult to do ; I could F . ™ 40 



separate them by the antennae and the form of the abdo- 

 men, but to give a recognizable discription of the front wings to separate the two, I 

 did not at the time seem capable of doing. So I requested him to get me a lot to see 

 ■what I could make out of them. He then brought me a bottle full, so I began pinning, 

 spreading and drawing out their antennae, which they keep completely out of sight 

 under their shoulder pads. After filling two setting boards and finding only male 

 velleda, I began to get tired. So I pinned the male laricis, then turned up to view 

 all the rest, when I noticed two differing from the others in the whiteness of the upper 

 surface and deeper scollops in the dark outer band, so I pinned and spread them and 

 found they had bristled antennae and rounded abdomens, which confirmed my expect- 

 ations that they were female laricis. Being under the impression that the females would 

 appear later, I took Mr. Bice a specimen and pointed out to him how he might recognize 

 female laricis when at rest, but he saw no more of them. I also requested him to get 

 me a lot of female velleda to go with the males 1 had spread ; he secured one, and could 

 get me no more, when they totally disappeared shortly after. The rule in this case was 

 not absolute, but it seems to point in the same direction as Mr. Grover's experience ; 

 and it is well to be warned in such matters what one has to expect, but the query 

 remains, why is it so ? [t is known that female insects as a rule are less active than 

 males ; and in this case it would be quite excusable for such a portly, richly-robed 

 dame, to refuse to join the revelers by night and dance around a light-pole ; yet some 

 of them did, but it may be placed to the credit of the sex that they were not the noblest 

 of their kind. 



Mr. Bice has again secured quite a number of fine moths new to the Society's 

 collection. Those that I have thus far been able to identify are a single specimen of 

 Thyatira pudens, Guen. This seems to be a very rare insect in this country. The large 

 spots on the front wings are a silvery white with the faintest tinge of pink. In 

 Guenee's colored figure, plate 3, fig. 1, they are altogether pink. A single specimen of 

 that large and handsome geometer Selenia kentaria, G. & R., and perhaps the first 



