MoUusca. 2935 



one or two minutes pass a pin through it and place it in the collecting box, to be set 

 at his leisure. The plan generally adopted round here for killing Lepidoptera, is by 

 pinching the thorax at the base of the wings : now I have seen the Abraxas Grossula- 

 riata, &c, struggling for days on the setiing-boards, it being nearly impossible en- 

 tirely to destroy the life of the insect by this method. Irrespective of the great cruelty 

 of the affair, it is bad policy on the part of the collector, as the specimens are longer 

 in drying, and of course must injure and displace themselves in their efforts to escape: 

 now by my plan, I have killed Smerinthus Populi without its removing its antennae 

 from its state of rest : Macroglossa Stellatarum drops instantly to the bottom of the 

 glass, perfectly motionless and dead. — R. W. Hawkins ; Upper Brook Street, 

 Rugeley, Staffordshire, September 11, 1850. 



Capture of Apion Sedi at Southend. — When at Southend, about six weeks back, I 

 met with this little insect in some plenty on the Sedum acre, taking about three dozen 

 in an hour. We are indebted to the exertions of Mr. Dawson for the discovery of this 

 species as a native of Britain, he having taken it at Deal two years back. I have no 

 doubt it will be found in other localities on the coast if the Sedum be examined. — 

 Samuel Stevens ; 24, Bloomsbury Street, August 28, 1850. 



Capture of Gnorimus variabilis at Tooting. — In the rotten and decayed oak-trees, 

 the last week in July, on Tooting Common, in five visits, I met with eighteen or 

 twenty specimens of this rare, or rather, local species, the habit is precisely similar to 

 that of nobilis, which latter frequents apple and plum-trees, at Hammersmith and 

 elsewhere. — Id. 



Earwigs (Forficula auricularia) devouring Insects on setting-boards. — I am accus- 

 tomed to place my drying-boards on the top of one of my book-cases, to protect them 

 from injury. Some weeks since, I observed with much dismay, several insects deprived 

 of their abdomen. I thought at first that they must have been knocked off: I placed 

 the boards, therefore, iu an upright position upon the chimney-piece to warn all peo- 

 ple. In vain, day after day, the bodies disappeared, and the antennae I found also 

 broken off. At last, going in one evening about eleven o'clock, I discovered my enemy 

 to be nothing less than earwigs ; as I detected a large one in the very act of making 

 his supper upon the abdomen of a fine Polia advena, the greater part of which he 

 had already devoured. I have since, you may be sure, taken good care to preclude 

 the possibility of such an event occurring again. — Joseph Greene ; Lower Guiting 

 Vicarage, Gloucester, September 10, 1850. 



[The fact related of the larva of the puss-moth in the same communication, is no 

 deviation from its ordinary economy. — E. NJ] 



Eggs of Arion ater. — In the last edition of Turton's ' Manual of British Land 

 and Fresh-water Mollusca,' it is stated that this slug " deposits its bluish eggs in a 

 cluster in May, at the roots of plants.'' Ten days ago, I found a gray variety of it, 

 the edge of its foot being dull orange, lined with black, and after keeping it three 

 days in a tin box with some damp moss, I found a cluster of white oval eggs attached 

 to the roots of the moss and the lower part of the box. This slug was crawling in a 

 pathway through a wood in the valley, near Charing, in Kent : in a wood on the top 



