163 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Clostkka anachoketa. — Whea a discussion, to which I am a party, 

 degenerates into personalities, I at once withdraw. Not a single paragraph 

 in either or both of Dr. Knaggs' communications has the slightest bearing 

 on my original contention, that G. anachoreta could not be justly considered 

 an indigenous British species. If Dr. Knaggs, having carefully examined 

 and understood my alleged facts as to its history in this country, can dis- 

 prove them, — or if, failing to do that, he can disprove or materially modify 

 the inference which I draw from those facts, — well and good. In default 

 of this, I decline to continue the discussion. — (Rev.) J. Geeene. 



HoMOPTERA AND Terrubia robertsii ? — Has not Mr. Billups made 

 a great mistake here? (p. 141). Has he not taken for a fungoid growth 

 the waxy filaments which emerge from the abdomen, &c., of Liptra pidveru- 

 lenta or Phenax auriconia? At any rate, the specimen should be examined 

 by a competent authority. — Harry Moore; 12, Lower Road, Rotherhithe. 



Destructive Insects in Africa (p. 135). — The South African locust, 

 or Voet-ganger, though it destroys the herbage, does not deprive stock of 

 food. A colonist who collected for me in the Amatola Mountains, Cape 

 Colony, informed me that sheep, oxen, and horses feed on them, and 

 always improve in condition after a flight. When a swarm settles on the 

 line, railway traffic is greatly impeded. Upon one occasion a train was 

 delayed 2^ hours between Maltera and King William's Town, their 

 carcases not allowing the wheels to bite. — Harry Moore ; 12, Lower Road, 

 Rotherhithe. 



Ancestral CoLOURiNa of Lepidoptera. — Mr. Frohawk calls atten- 

 tion (Entora. 97) to the frequency of the occurrence of white spots in 

 Argynnis paphia, and suggests that in primeval times only brown, black, 

 and white forms existed, and that white spots " may be instances of rever- 

 sion to a later transitional stage." I suppose this is still a debatable point; 

 but it certainly is remarkable that, in the figure given of Mr. Carpenter's 

 capture of July 23, 1892, the white spots, as far as they go, are identical 

 with those in the female oi Argynnis sagana, Dbld., from Eastern Siberia 

 and Japan, one of the finest known examples of a supposed archaic type. 

 In the specimen I possess the ground colour approaches very nearly that of 

 A. valesina, only the white blotches (including a beautiful series of angular 

 spots within the margins) occupy about a fourth of the entire area. In this 

 connexion, may not the male of Melitcea cynthia be considered another 

 partial survival of, or reversion to, the ancient form ? Mr. Jenner Weir, 

 in September, 1886, exhibited, before the South London Natural History 

 Society, specimens of A. paphia and A. euphrosyne with white spots on 

 the wings, and both he and Mr. South advanced ingenious theories to 

 account for them. The former gentleman also again, in October of the 

 same year, produced specimens of Vanessa cardui and Colias electra from 

 Graharastown, with similar albinic characteristics. In October, 1887, Mr. 

 South, after an exhaustive series of experiments with concentration of the 

 sun's rays on portions of the pupae of Vanessa io, withdrew his former 

 theory. Again, in April, 1887, Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell read a paper before 

 the same Society, in which he accounts chemically for colour variations, 

 especially in cases of albinism and melanism. Other theories have also 

 been put forth, and yet we hardly seem to have advanced beyond the fact 

 that there is, in constant operation, a mysterious law of Nature which 



