CLOSTERA ANACHORETA. 118 



statement, and the retraction of the same. Included within that 

 apolojSy, he might also have seen the recorded testimony of the 

 late Mr. Doubleday, which, by Mr. Greene's precipitate action, 

 has been released from its grave, and is now available for my 

 purpose. It is as follows : — 



" Mr. Sidney Cooper was not aware that the insect he bred was 

 C. anachoreta, until, some time afterwards, he saw my specimens op 

 C. curtula, which he said were different prom the insect he had 

 BRED, Which was therefore no doubt anachoreta.'' — (Zool. 7717). 

 N.B. — The small capitals are mine. 



I, myself, have recorded (' Annual' for 1864, page 130) the 

 fact that the larva of C. anachoreta was first found by Mr. Sidney 

 Cooper ; and the same statement occurs in our most recent 

 standard work on the British Lepidoptera, viz., Newman's 

 'British Moths,' p. 223, published 1869. 



Although, as already stated, Mr. Cooper is a stranger to me, 

 I took the liberty of writing to him at the time I was preparing 

 my last communication, but, owing to that gentleman being 

 abroad, there was a delay in receiving his two replies. The first 

 was much to the effect of the note at page 112, Entom. 1888 ; 

 the second was as follows : — 



" Unless the memory of our mutual friend Mr. Lynch prove better 

 than my own, I fear that the two paragraphs from the ' Zoologist,' 

 which you kindly send me, contain all the reliable information which 

 is now attainable in respect to my capture of Clostera anachoreta ; 

 their very existence had faded from my memory, and, now that I have 

 read them, I cannot feel the same confidence in some of my impressions 

 that 1 did when I last wrote. Of their accuracy, however, I have no 

 manner of doubt, for they together furnish a record of the circumstance 

 which was made at the time, and are not emanations from a precarious 

 memory, which I fear, on many points, cannot be relied upon, after a 

 lapse of over thirty years. I DO now remember having the insect 



FOR SOME time IN MY CABINET BEFORE I KNEW WHAT IT WAS, AND THAT I 

 SUPPOSED IT WAS CUrtula, OP WHICH I HAD NO SPECIMEN, ALTHOUGH I HAD 

 FINE SPECIMENS OF reclusa. It must have been my EXAMINATION OP Mr. 



Henry Doubleday' s collection which first made me aware op my 



ERROR." 



The small capitals are mine, but the emphases on the words 

 "their" and " do" are Mr. Cooper's. 



As it seems to me hardly possible that any unprejudiced person 

 can consider that the evidence produced is outweighed by Mr. 

 Greene's unsupported ipse-dixit, I presume that no one will 

 dispute the fact that Mr. Cooper was the original captor of C. 

 anachoreta. 



I now invite Mr. Greene to explain how he reconciles the 

 theory of importation with Mr. Cooper's captures. 



Camden Eoad, March 7, 1893. 



ENTOM. — APRIL, 1893 M 



