﻿10 [June, 



place in Scotland. Coleopterists probably often come across these insects ; so if 

 they could find room for them in their laurel-bottles, and, at the end of the 

 season, send them to me, I should be very grateful. — F. Buchanan White, Perth, 

 May 10th, 1869. 



Abundance in 1868 of the winged form, of Velia currens. — Of this insect, so 

 common on running water, I had for many years sought in vain for a winged 

 individual ; the hundreds I had taken for examination were all apterous, and I had 

 known only of two or three winged examples being found over a wide area within 

 the period. I was therefore greatly pleased when, in April last year, one of my 

 boys caught, on one of our streams, a fully developed example, and, I having incited 

 him to further search, he soon brought 20 or 30, and above 100 were taken in April 

 and May by others. What was the cause of the acquisition of wings by so many 

 individuals ? There was nothing exceptional in the weather of 1 867 to favour 

 development — the insects appeared before the heat of 1868 — and there have been 

 no winged ones since, as might have been expected if heat influences full develop- 

 ment ; so I apprehend the cause must be sought in other than external circum- 

 stances. At present, and perhaps for ever, if this be true, the cause of such 

 irregular development must be hypothetical. In Nature there is always a reserve 

 of power — a capability of replenishing exhausted force and renewing action in one 

 way or another. In insects we see this, for instance, in undeveloped bees and 

 ants, the stage to which the ordinary workers attain being sufficient for the race ; 

 but if occasion arrive which requires a different condition of life, development is 

 not arrested in so many individuals as usual — the reserve is brought forward. So 

 it may be as to the development of wings in Velia — and doubtless in other insects — 

 that the law of Infinite Wisdom, under which the creatures ordinarily exist without 

 wings, has latent power for the production of these members when they are to 

 become necessary for the welfare of the race, either in removing the individuals to 

 better localities, or in taking them to mingle with other stocks and so prevent 

 deterioration. I say when the wings are to become necessary, for they must be 

 prepared in the penultimate state, and the creatures can have no prescience or will 

 of their own in providing for their unknown future. — J. W. Douglas, Lee : 14sth 

 April, 1869. 



Hints for finding eggs and larvw of Lycmna Arion. — My observations on the 

 habits of the larvae of Chrosis ewphorbiana seem to have contributed to finding that 

 species in England. Perhaps a suggestion with reference to Lycaina Arion may 

 enable English entomologists to be the first to unravel the Natural History of the 

 " Large Blue," rare as it is with them. 



I may mention, in the first place, that I was astonished to find that in the 

 mountainous parts of Silesia this species had different haunts from those which I 

 hitherto observed it to frequent in the plains ; for, when at Salzbrunn, in 1838, I saw 

 it plentifully in the moist open meadows at the foot of Mount Hochwald, whereas 

 near Glogau, as well as at Frankfort and Meseritz, it frequents dry fir-forests, on the 

 most barren and sandy ground. My astonishment would probably have been less 

 had I been then acquainted with the food-plant of Lycxna Arion, for I well recol- 

 lect that in those moist meadows Thymus serpyllum was very abundant. 



