296 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Oa one occasion I captured twenty-three specimens in a single night. The 

 locality is the " Devil's Kneading Trough," Brook, about a mile and a half 

 from Wye Station, S.E. Railway. It is a very fine locality for several 

 other species as well as F. leucophcea. There are two very high banks, the 

 further and highest bank being the best. The following is the mode of 

 capture : — Get sticks about 18 inches long ; insert them in the bank, 

 about 10 yards apart, in rows ; then tie up bundles of grass, and put them 

 on the heads of the sticks and daub them with sugar, which must be very 

 thick or it soaks into the grass. In ordinary years the time should be the 

 last week in May and first week in June, when a warm balmy night, with- 

 out wind, should be sure to yield a dozen or more specimens of P. leuco- 

 phcea. The species occurs all along the Wye Downs, but the " Devil's 

 Kneading Trough " is its chief breeding-place. I shall be pleased to give 

 every information to anyone wishing to go after this species. — G. Parry ; 

 Church Street, St. Paul's, Canterbury, Sept. 13, 1893. 



Spilosoma ltjbrioipeda var. zatima {= radeata). — I have just read 

 Mr. South's paper, under the above heading (Entom. 257), with great inte- 

 rest; oa my own account, because it gives me a favourable opportunity to 

 modify the remarks I made on this variety in the ' Naturalist ' for 1889, as 

 quoted by Mr. South, and which — ever since I first saw, several months 

 ago, the extreme form of radiata now being bred — I felt it would be neces- 

 sary to do. My remarks, as quoted by Mr. South, no doubt imply that the 

 York specimens of radiata are exactly the same form as that which Mr. 

 Harrison, of Barnsley, was two years ago so fortunate as to breed ; but such 

 is not the case. The fact is, that any specimen of lubricipteda strongly 

 marked with radiate streaks was called by us variety radiata, and it was to 

 such specimens I, and no doubt Mr. Carrington also (Entom. xxii., p. 207), 

 alluded in the remarks referred to. Fig. 1, illustrating Mr. South's paper, 

 represents what, until the breeding of Mr. Harrison's grand specimens, had 

 been considered a fairly good specimen of radiata; but Mr. Harrison's 

 specimens much more nearly approach Fig. 2, and there seems little doubt 

 that if the strain holds out, by selection, we shall in a year or two get this 

 form (var. deschangei) absolutely. Mr. H. B. Fletcher, of Worthing, in- 

 forms me that this extreme form of radiata vs^as for very many years known 

 to occur on the Lincolnshire coast, and that he has a fine but old specimen 

 in his collection taken there. I believe it has occurred in Yorkshire ; 

 indeed, Mr. Hewett, of York, informs me that he has seen three speci- 

 mens of the extreme form of radiata, which were taken at DrifiS.eld. They 

 are like Mr. Harrison's specimens, but smaller. It is certainly rare, 

 whereas the form we have called radiata — the intermediate form — is of 

 frequent occurrence in some districts. Through the kindness of Mr. 

 Harrison, who last year sent me a small batch of eggs, I bred, from 

 May 23rd to 31st last, fifty splendid specimens of radiata, and from eggs 

 obtained from them have, during the past fortnight or so, bred nine more 

 as second brood. To those who note the priority in emergence of the 

 sexes, the following facts will be interesting, and probably puzzling. 

 Of the first twenty-two specimens which emerged in May, only two were 

 females, some dozen males emerging before a female appeared, whereas the 

 latter half of the brood emerged nearly all females. In the second brood 

 all the nine specimens which have emerged up to now are females, not a 

 single male having put in an appearance. — Geo. T. Porritt ; Huddersfield, 

 Sept. 1, 1893. 



