CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 197 



never taken before in the district, Hemerophila abriiptaria. Of this insect, 

 Mr. A. O.Walker writes : — " Upton ; Tranmere ; Rock Ferry; Ness; 

 scarce, Chester [Mann in//}." On April 20th, I took a Selenia bilunaria 

 (iilunaria) ; but I had seen the species a week ago. Such are my gas-lamp 

 notes ; and they close, for the present, with the 21st, when a crescent moon 

 frightened away all the moths, except a roving Geometer, which escaped 

 capture, and a dilapidated D. fagella. Butterflies have been early, and in 

 promising numbers. In North Wales (Denbighshire), April 3rd, I saw my 

 first, a fine female Vanessa io ; of course it was not disturbed. On April 6th, 

 a friend in Montgomeryshire sent me four living (hybernated) V. c-albutn 

 from Welshpool, two males and two females ; but I failed to get eggs. On 

 April 10th, I saw my first white butterfly, a male Pierls rapcB. On the 

 15th, when I saw the first swallow, and with the lilacs and apple trees all 

 in bloom, I came across a freshly-emerged male P. napi. Other local 

 entomologists report specimens of P. rapa, seen in the district on 

 April 3rd ; and V. urticce as early as March 27th. On April 17th, a 

 living specimen of Caradrina quadripunctata (cuhicularis) was sent me by 

 Mr. J. Lyon Denson, of Chester. To-day, April 22nd, we had P. brasdcce 

 (males) flying about in the Chester streets. An expedition this afternoon 

 for two or three miles into Sealand, just beyond the city, was enlivened by 

 the martial strains of the first corncrake. The following butterflies were 

 either captured or distinctly seen : — P. najn, plentiful, all males, netted 

 six ; of these six, two had the black spot on the upper wings very distinctly 

 marked, two had it indistinctly, and the remaining couple were without it. 

 Several P. brassiccs were seen, all males. P. rfl^«, a few observed ; no 

 females. Euchloe cardammes, one splendid male example, with very large 

 " orange tips "; nearly captured. Trees in blossom : hawthorn, laburnum, 

 and horse-chestnut. Night: starry, bright moonlight; not a cloud, and — 

 not a moth ! My first hybernated larva turned up, out of doors, in a hedge 

 root, outside Chester, March 12th ; a Geometer, and now in the chrysalis ; 

 species uncertain. Larvae of Arctia caia seem exceptionally numerous ; 

 the first I saw was on March 25th. April 3rd, I took, in the valley of 

 the Alwyn, North Wales (Denbighshire), a larva of Agrotis ashwoithii. — 

 J. Arkle ; Chester, April 22, 1893. 



Cumberland. — Insects at Keswick are exceptionally early this spring. I 

 took eight Thecla rubi on April 26th, some of them quite worn; and since 

 then about seventy more good specimens and a number of worn ones, which 

 were set at liberty again. On April 24th, I picked off the lake a dead Noto- 

 donta trepida, and most other things are equally early. My latest capture, 

 April 7th, is A'^. dromedarius, for which Newman gives June. I think the 

 present season bids fair to eclipse the last, as larvae are very abundant 

 wherever I have collected. — H. A. Beadle ; 28, Lake Road, Keswick. 



Essex. — On May 6th, I captured a rather worn Vanessa polychloros, at 

 a spot about half a mile east of the Ambresburg Banks, Epping Forest. Of 

 the other Rhopalocera in that neighbourhood, a few Euchloe cardamines, 

 Lycana icarus, and L. argiolus were taken ; Aryynnis euphrosyne, Thanaos 

 tages, and the " whites " may be said to be fairly common ; whilst Syrichthus 

 vialvcB was abundant. It may be interesting to note that as early as April 

 14th I took both E. cardamines and S. malvce at Long Running, also in 

 Epping Forest; and on the 21st, L. argiolus at Woodford. — H. F. Hunt; 

 14, Thistlewaite Road, Clapton, N.E., May 11, 1893. 



Sussex and Isle of Wight. — Lycmia icarus appeared in W. Sussex this 

 year on April 29th, and Sphinx ligusiri emerged May 1st, Hepialus lupu- 



