b NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



the softness of its soil, the meadow has the local name of Chapel- 

 river bog. In the same place I got four more on the 6th, between 

 3 and 4 p. m., and saw two or three more ; the day was one of alter- 

 nate sunshine and shade, the wind westerly. On the 8th I got three 

 more, between 4 and 4^- p.m., wind south-west, showers and sun- 

 shine. After this date I saw no more of them, although I frequented 

 the place almost every day in the afternoon hours. It was, I think, 

 an unusual thing to obtain this sphinx so late in the season, but the 

 uncommon backwardness of insects this year was most remarkable. 

 May is the time given for its appearance in Stainton's Manual, and on 

 this account I had but little hope of being able to get any specimens in 

 July. It is impossible, of course, to say how long the specimens had 

 been out ; but they all appeared quite fresh when captured, as may be 

 easily seen by looking at them now. I had also been under the im- 

 pression that these moths were most likely to be found in the hottest 

 sunshine, and in the brightest parts of the day ; but I did not meet 

 with one before 1 p. m., and their time of appearance was usually 

 between 3 and 5 o'clock, p. m. They seemed to come from the adjacent 

 plantation, in which there was a good deal of alder and fir, to the 

 blossoms in the boggy meadow which attracted them, and to fly off 

 towards the same place when they left the flowers. 



On the 19th of July, I saw the first silver- washed fritillary (A. pa- 

 phia). I had been on the look out for these butterflies from the 1st of 

 the month, about which time they should be out in ordinary seasons. A 

 fine series, male and female, of these beautiful insects was soon obtained, 

 almost always taken over bramble blossoms. I met with but two tiger 

 moths ( A. caja) during the summer: one, which when I saw it was 

 almost unrecognisable from its battered condition, had been found in a 

 garden, in the early part of August, by a workwoman, who had kept it 

 in her pocket the greater part of the day, which accounted for its ap- 

 pearance ; the other was a very perfect insect, fresh from thB chrysalis, 

 which in the end of August came into a lighted room through an open 

 window. It is a common matter of observation how comparatively 

 seldom the tiger moth is found in the perfect condition, while the well- 

 known hairy larva is so frequently met with both in spring and in au- 

 tumn. The larvse of the tiger moth may turn up in most unexpected 

 places. In the early part of last June I found in the course of a week 

 or ten days about eighteen of them, feeding upon dock and white net- 

 tle, in a small yard, not far from the centre of this city, enclosed by 

 high walls and buildings ; the enclosure is paved, but the docks, white 

 nettle, crowfoot, and plantain have contrived to grow between the 

 stones with great luxuriance; it is enclosed on two sides by the buildings 

 of the Medical School of the University of Dublin, and by high walls 

 on the other sides. It is not a spot which one would think likely to 

 attract the female tiger moth to deposit her eggs in. I bred nine tigers 

 from the larvae, and several of them are as good specimens as are 

 usually seen. There were no varieties among them, nor is this to be 

 wondered at, since their circumstances as to light and food, while in the 



