NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 247 



a considerable number of imagines emerged in 1892, the proportion of those 

 appearing this year being about one to three of the 1892 emergences. 

 Small numbers of Lopliopteryx carmelita, CuculUa verbasci, and Tephrosia 

 luridata have also appeared from broods that went to pupa in the autumn 

 of 1891. Whether the unusually warm spring and the exceptional number 

 of such emergences are really cause and effect, or are merely a coincidence, 

 I do not pretend to say on the slender evidence coming under my own notice; 

 but if those entomologists who keep their breeding-cages going from year to 

 year would record their experiences of the present as compared with past 

 years, an amount of evidence would no doubt be forthcoming that would 

 admit of some conclusion being arrived at. — Robert Adkin ; 4, Lingard's 

 Road, Levvisham, S.E., July, 1893. 



Varieties of Spilosoma (Arctia) lubricipeda and Psilura 

 MONACHA. — Whilst my brothers of the net have been ranging the hill, 

 field, wood, and fen, in active pursuit of their entomological game during 

 the splendid weather of this marvellous summer, unfortunately for myself 

 I have been confined to the solitude of my sick-room through a severe 

 attack of lumbar-neuritis ; yet, thanks to the charms of larva-rearing, I have 

 still been able to get some most interesting experiences from amongst my 

 breeding-cages. Last year I fortunately obtained a few ova of Arctia 

 lubricipeda var. radiata, Curtis, thanks to Mr, Harrison, of Barnsley, both 

 male and female parents being true radiata type. The warm April brought 

 all out, and each example proved of radiata type — every specimen true 

 to heredity, varying in intensity, still all radiata. I obtained a pairing, 

 which duly hatched, and fed up during May and early June; and on the 

 8th July the first imago made its welcome appearance in my cage, and 

 to date (July I8th) several more ; so that, at any rate, there will be this 

 year a partial double brood. All again are quite true to type of parents ; 

 some four are almost black, only three small intercellular streaks of cream- 

 colour on the superior wings ; the under wings entirely black, relieved only 

 by the fine yellow lines of the nerves of the wings and with black fringes : 

 truly grand vars. A great point of interest is the remarkable manner in 

 which the offspring have followed the type of the parents ; and the same 

 thing occurred with a very large brood I this year bred of another type of 

 the same species, I last year reared several hundred larvae from a selected 

 Yorkshire form, but of a totally different type; in these the character was 

 to form a strong central fascia of the Noctua pattern, and from my many 

 pupae of this form I have indeed bred a wonderful series. These varied 

 from normal southern type to the grand banded form, but totally differing 

 from the radiata of Curtis. I selected a female of the strongest banded 

 form and crossed with a good male var. radiata. The larvae from this 

 pairing are now feeding, and I shall watch with much interest the emergence 

 of these imagines to see if there is any blending of the two distinct forms of 

 this curiously variable insect. Besides the beautiful vars. of lubricipeda, 

 I, too, have bred some extremely fine varieties of Psilura monacha. 

 Mr. Chas. Fenn most kindly sent me a few young larvae of his most 

 interesting brood of this species, from which he, by selection and in-breeding, 

 has been trying to obtain a perfectly black form ; and, to judge by my 

 result, I little doubt but that he has succeeded, as in my short series three 

 of them may very fairly be called black, and all are very nearly so, as even 

 on the white markings they are strongly flecked with black scales. — W. H. 

 TuGWELL ; 16, Lewisham Road, July 18, 1893, 



