NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 21 



able elevation in quest of food, and have found them on a "Virginia 

 creeper" some twenty feel from the ground, but they appeared to descend 

 to, and for some time travel about upon, the earth previous to pupation ; 

 and I can only account for the cocoons beino placed in the situation where 

 we found them by reason of the protection afforded to the insect, during its 

 quiescent stage, by the close assimilation of the cocoons to their surround- 

 ings, — RoBT. Adkin ; Lewisham, November, 1892. 



" jAssembltng " IN Lepidoptera. — I have been rather surprised, in the 

 notes which have appeared on this subject, that Odonestis potatoria has 

 not been mentioned. It is, I have found, very easily " assembled ; " 

 Callimorpha dominida, I believe, also. A season or two past on one 

 occasion in South Wales, having captured a rather dilapidated specimen, I 

 found myself suddenly in company with some half dozen others. It was a 

 very windy day, so that the insects had difficulty in flying, aiid did not 

 again approach after once being frightened, and theretore 1 was unable to 

 certify they were attracted by the specimen in my net, which I concluded 

 must be a female. — T. B. Jeffrbys ; Clevedon. 



Two MORE Cases ob^ " Assembling." — In an outhouse, where I have 

 been in the habit of keeping a number of breeding-cages of one sort and 

 another, Endrosis fenestrella has been of far too comtnon occurrence during 

 the past summer. Among the other receptacles in this outhouse stood four 

 flower-pots, each covered with leno, and containing seed-heads of Silene, in 

 which DianthcecicB larvae had fed-up during the previous autumn. Three 

 of them I knew contained pup^e, but in the fourth I had been able to trace 

 neither larvse nor pupae, and therefore concluded that it was devoid of any 

 great attraction, in this respect, for the Endrosis. On visiting my cages just 

 before dusk one evening at the end of June, I noticed some three or four 

 fenestrella fluttering about on the top of the leno that covered the last- 

 named flower-pot. I was annoyed at seeing so many at one time, and 

 having killed them went away, and thought no more about it ; but having 

 occasion to go into the outhouse again later in the evening, I was surprised 

 to find no less than seven of the little pests, all flutteiing about in a great 

 state of excitement, on the covering of the same pot. I at once concluded 

 that there must be some cause of attraction at the particular spot where 

 they were assembled, and upon removing the leno 1 found a fine freshly- 

 emerged female fenestrella, sitting just beneath it on the inside of the 

 flower-pot. Evidently this was the cause, and the individuals found on the 

 outside were males attracted by it ; having removed it I found the cover 

 of this pot, on two subsequent visits, quite free oi fenestrella, as the other 

 three had been during the whole of the evening. Earlier in the spring I 

 reared a considerable number of Biston hirtaria in a large zinc-covered cage 

 standing in the open, and on several occasions, when freshly-emerged 

 females were left in it over night, one or more males were found resting on 

 the outside of the cage in the morning, the largest number found at one 

 time being three. The species did not appear to be common in this neigh- 

 bourhood ; indeed, the only wild examples that I came across were those 

 that rested on the cage. — Eobt. Adkin ; Lewisham, November, 1892. 



Erratum. — Entom. xxv. p. 226, line 16 from bottom, for seventeen 

 read seven. 



