THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 171 



Acronycta Alni. — In your capital moth-book you say you 

 do not know what Acronycta Alni feeds on : a friend of mine 

 beat it from birch in this county three days ago. — F. S, 

 Wesley ; IVetherhy, Tadcasler, August 2, 1870. 



[The passage in ' British Moths ' stands thus: — ''With 

 regard to the food -plant of the caterpillar there is con- 

 siderable doubt ; it has been found, in confinement, to eat 

 whitethorn and alder, but I am not certain whether it has 

 been ascertained to eat either of these in a perfectly natural 

 condition." The caterpillar has been beaten off hazel, elm, 

 beech, birch, aspen, blackthorn, whitethorn, dog-rose, bramble, 

 privet, buckthorn, and other trees and shrubs, but 1 cannot 

 consider its normal food-plants yet discovered. — E. N.] 



Acronycta Alni feeding on Hazel. — On the 31st of Jidy a 

 young collector, who has occasionally gone out with me to 

 ray favourite ground, found the larva of A. Alni feeding on 

 hazel : it " made up " in a piece of peat, Aug. 6th. — Frederick 

 Enock ; 7^j, Ryland Road, Edgbaston, August 10, 1870. 



Larva of Acronycta Alni. — About the beginning of July 

 last I took the larva of Acronycta Alni on hazel in Leigh 

 Woods, Bristol. It was very small when I found it, and 

 differed considerably in appearance from the full-grown 

 caterpillars, having only the characteristic horse-hair like 

 appendages on the second segment, and instead of being 

 velvety black, with a yellow transverse mark on each 

 segment (as it afterwards became), the posterior part was all 

 a dirty yellowish white ; while the anterior part was a dingy 

 brown, with a white stripe along the sides, and a whitish 

 patch on the back of the first two or three segments. You 

 state in your 'Natural History of British Moths' that this 

 caterpillar exhibits no uneasiness when handled ; I certainly 

 did not find this to be the case in my specimen, for when 

 disturbed it used to strike its head violently from side to 

 side, and then appeared to feel all round it with its head, in 

 search of the offender. I only succeeded in finding one 

 specimen of this larva, and it unfortunately proved to be 

 infected with ichneumons. Before succumbing to their 

 attacks it gnawed a large hole in a piece of paper at the 

 bottom of the box I kept it in, but had not strength left to 

 form any sort of cocoon. — R. Aldridge ; Weston-super-Mare, 

 August, 1870. 



