CURRENT NOTES. 193 
be, firstly, the absence of any incentive among collectors to breed the 
species, owing to the ease with which the imago can be captured, and 
secondly, the difficulty of guessing at the right pabulum among the 
great variety of plants generally growing in the localities haunted by 
this species.—Aurrep Si1cu, F.E.S., 65, Barrowgate Road, Chiswick. 
May 23rd, 1900. 
GY URRENT NOTES. 
At the meeting of the Ent. Soc. of London, on May 2nd, the Rey. 
Theodore Wood exhibited a specimen of Carabus auratus, L., taken in 
either June or September, 1898, by Mr. Ferrand, of Littlefield House, 
Exmouth, on the Haldon Hills, in the neighbourhood of that town. 
Mr. McLachlan also exhibited an example of Rhinocypha fulgidipennis, 
Guérin, a brilliant little dragon-fly of the subfamily Calopteryginae, a 
native of Cochin China, which, so far as he knew, had not been 
captured since prior to 1830. It had been in M. Guérin’s hands, and 
Mr. McLachlan had received it from M. René Oberthivr. 
At the same meeting Dr. T. A. Chapman exhibited various speci- 
mens illustrating Acanthopsyche opacella ; fresh females showing the 
six nearly complete rings of silky wool with which she is clothed; 
specimens preserved in cop., showing the exact position of the male 
moth in the female case, and the position of the two moths in relation 
to the female pupa-case. It was incidentally mentioned that the 
inflation of the male abdomen with air was observed to be the main 
force employed in advancing the male abdomen into position, and 
that observation of the immature wing threw considerable light on 
the real neuration in this species. 
At the same meeting Mr. Barrett exhibited specimens of Heterocera 
destructive to the fruit crops of South Africa. Among them Sphingo- 
morpha montetronis, Butl., known as the Fruit Moth in Cape Colony— 
a bold and powerful insect, with a sucking tongue strong enough to 
pierce the sound skin of a peach or fig. The presence of a heht does 
not appear to disturb it, so that examination of its methods can be 
readily made, when it can be seen that it does not take advantage of 
the natural opening into a fig, or of a crack or other injury to a peach, 
but deliberately pierces a hole which afterwards shows as a small round 
spot, from which decay invariably results. It seems a matter of 
indifference to the moth whether the fruit has fallen, or is on the tree, 
ripe or unripe. With regard to Achaea lienardi and Serrodes inara, 
the two species are restless and timid, and, therefore, more difficult to 
observe. In the present season, however, both have been extremely 
abundant, and have been seen at apparently uninjured fruit, so that it 
seems they are capable of equal destruction, and this is the more 
probable, as all the species alike are provided with somewhat saw-like 
teeth toward the tip of each section of the sucking apparatus. 
Mr. W. A. Luff has now given us an up-to-date list of The Insects 
of Alderney. It occupies 23 pp., and includes all the orders that have 
been worked, and the additions, made by Mr. K. D. Marquand recently, 
are highly suggestive of what still remains to be done before it can be 
really said that the fauna of the Channel Islands is known. Hitherto 
Mr. Luff has worked almost alone, helped only in Guernsey by the 
