NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 135 



most grateful. — P. E. Radley ; Marguerita, Maturatta, Ceylon, Feb. 12, 

 1893. 



Destructive Insects in Africa. — About a fortnight since, the locusts 

 paid Johannesburg a visit ; they came in millions, and settled in the town 

 and on the holdt surrounding it for miles on every side. After a brief stay the 

 majority re-started in a north-easterly direction, although countless numbers 

 of dead ones are everywhere seen. Fires were lighted in pubHc and private 

 gardens, and everything done to destroy them, but the burnt-up appearance 

 of everything tells its tale. Since their disappearance I have visited a 

 favourite spot, where last year I found several orders of insects very plenti- 

 ful, but there were none of any kind to be found, This was a marshy spot, 

 and some of the long grass and flowers escaped the general devastation. I 

 quite expected to get something, but it would appear that insects of all 

 orders, save house-flies, have gone ; it is universally regretted that these 

 industrious little fellows did not also go. I passed through Natal last 

 month, and stayed one night at Newcastle, where they have had a plague 

 of caterpillars. Many of the trees (weeping willow) were quite defoliated. 

 The caterpillar was a large handsome Bomhyx, which I have not yet been 

 able to identify, but which seems to be widely distributed in S. Africa. 

 Zulus were employed in beating the trees with long bamboo canes, when the 

 caterpillars were collected in buckets and buried. Chcerocampa celerio was 

 very plentiful in the gardens in the evening ; in fact, it seemed the commonest 

 moth there, although many of the smaller species swarmed around the lamp 

 at the hotel.— J. P. Cregoe; Johannesburg, Jan. 1, 1893. 



First appearance of Sexes of Lkpidoptera. — Writing under this 

 head (Entom. xxii. Q13), Mr. A. E. Hall stated that, in his experience of 

 breeding Lepidoptera, the females were nearly always the first to appear l)y 

 a day or two. At the time I was under the impression that this did not 

 agree with my own experience; but I had no notes, and determined to wait 

 and make some investigations before expressing an opinion. This I have 

 done, and have not noted a single species in which the females are regularly 

 the first to appear; generally both seem to appear together, but when there 

 is a difference it is in favour of the male, thus agreeing with what Mr. Hall 

 states to be the general opinion. I have especially noticed this in the 

 winter-emerging Geometrse, as the following statistics will show. Hybeniia 

 aurantiaria. — 1890: males, Nov. 11 to 21; females, Nov. 12 to Dec. 4 

 (only three before Nov. 19). 1891 : males, Nov. 7 to 21 ; females, Nov. 

 17 to Dec. 2 (only one before Nov. 24). 1892 : males, Oct. 31 to Nov. 17; 

 females, Nov. 12 to 27. H. rupicapraria — 1891 : males, Jan. 31 to Feb. 

 14 ; females, Feb. 16 to March 6. 1892 : males, Jan. 23 to Feb. 22 ; 

 females, Jan. 26 to Feb. 28 (only five females against fourteen males up to 

 Feb. 1). 1893 : males, Jan. 23 to Feb. 13 ; females, Jan. 28 to Feb. 13 

 (twenty-five males and seven females to Feb. 2, twenty-six females and four 

 males from Feb. 3 to 13). Cheimatohia horeata. — 1890: males, Nov. 7 to 

 11 ; females, Nov. 15 to 21 (only a few bred). 1891: males, Oct. 26 to 

 Nov. 10 ; females, Nov. 11 to 16 (only a few bred). 1892 : males, Nov. 5 

 to 14 ; females, Nov. 5 to 18. With regard to Mr. Hall's conjecture as to 

 the " reason for the females emerging first," viz., " that they require a cer- 

 tain period to elapse before coition," this is not borne out by the breeder's 

 experiences of the immediate copulations which take place, nor by those of 

 entomologists who work at "assembling," and who generally find the first 



