215 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



"Fungi parasitic on Butterflies." — In reference to the paper on 

 this subject [ante, p. 170), it may save some perplexity if I inform 

 entomologists that the structures described in the paper are those 

 called battledore scales, or male plumules, or androconia. As no 

 allusion is made in the paper to the fact that the structures are those 

 known and figured by so many entomologists, and as this was pointed 

 out at the meeting of the Society at which the paper was read, it is 

 desirable that this statement should be made. — D. S.; p. C.N.H. Soc. 



If Mr. Rickard, who contributes to the June * Entomologist ' an 

 article with the above heading, had ever studied the androconia of 

 butterflies, he would have at once understood why his supposed 

 " fungi" were confined to the male sex of the insects examined. We 

 recommend his examination of Wonfor's articles and illustrations in 

 the 'Journal of Microscopical Science,' new series, vols. viii. and ix. — 

 Samuel H. Scudder ; Cambridge, U.S.A., June 7th, 1896. 



G^NANDRous Ino (Procris) geryon. — I wcnt out, on June 1st, 

 to get a few specimens of this insect for friends, and found males 

 largely predominating in numbers. Whilst hunting up sufficient 

 females to make the numbers even, I took one insect which had a 

 normal male feathered antenna on the right side and a slender female 

 one on the other. On setting this specimen, I found that the right 

 wings were a shade longer and larger than the left, which seems 

 corroborative evidence of hermaphroditism. I do not find that the 

 sexes in this insect are exactly simihxr in size, the males being a trifle 

 the larger. I am not sufficient of an entomologist to know if the 

 above is conclusive evidence of hermaphroditism, or to be able to 

 supplement it, or even to be aware if the case is at all unusual. — 

 Henry H. Slater ; Thornhaugh Rectory, Wansford, Northants. 



[The specimen is certainly gynandrous ("hermaphrodite"). In the 

 'Wiener Entom. Zeitung,' 1884, there is a figure of an example of Ino 

 ampelophaga, in which the abdomen appears to be that of a female, 

 whilst the right antenna is distinctly male and the left antenna female 

 in character. — Ed.] 



CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 



Notes on the Season from the Chester District. — A torrid 

 summer in 1895, followed by a winter that would have done duty for the 

 South of France ! Cheshire newspapers recorded the appearance, out-of- 

 doors, of butterflies in January ! I captured my first, in the open, on 

 February 11th — a hybernated Vanessa urticcB. Long before that date, as 

 early as February 3rd, Phigalia pedaria (pilosarla) had been common 

 enough on our gas-lamps. I continued to take the species in Delamere 

 Forest, from oak-trunks, by day, until April 11th. The captures showed 

 the usual range of colour variation — from pale grey with indistinct markings 

 to specimens strongly marked, and thence on, but rarely, to unicolorous 

 and almost black ones. Hybernia rupieapraria 1 saw on the gas-lamps, 

 Feb. 8th. One of the surprises of the season here has been the scarcity of 



