THE ENTOMOLOGIST. S15 



A. Mendica, having only two spots on the fore wing and none 

 on the hind wings. I obtained eggs from it, and they duly 

 hatched : I fed them on chickweed ; they lay over the winter 

 in the pupa, and have just emerged, ten or twelve of them; 

 and they are all coloured in the same manner as the parent. 

 The males are a smoky black, but have only the two spots. 

 If this is a variety, is it usual for it to be continued in 

 the offspring? — JV. H. Hamilton ; 13, Union' Street, New- 

 castle-on-Tyne, May 6, 1871. 



I can scarcely answer this question ; the transmission of 

 varietal colouring to descendants is very imperfectly under- 

 stood at present. 



Butterflies in Carmarthenshire, — As I see in your ' British 

 Butterflies' you are giving a list of localities, you may care to 

 know that in this neighbourhood (two miles from Carmarthen), 

 though only a beginner, I find marble whites and orange 

 tips in great abundance; Edusa, plentiful; high brown fritil- 

 lary, grayling and brimstone, scarce. A collector for five 

 years has not taken one brimstone ; 1 have seen two and 

 taken one. — Owen S. Wilson; Cwmffrivd, Carmarthen^ 

 May 7, 1871. 



I am obliged for this and many other communications 

 of similar import from different parts of the country, but am 

 quite unable to understand why such information was withheld 

 until the completion of the work had precluded the possibility 

 of making it useful. 



Bees deluded by the Colour of Spiders. — I was walking 

 this afternoon beside the Blackwater, a small stream which 

 flows through our valley, when I observed a common hive 

 bee hanging, as I supposed, by the abdomen, from the 

 blossom of a yellow cress, which is abundant there, Barbarea 

 vulgaris. Accordingly, I picked the blossom and examined 

 it more closely, as the position of the bee was peculiar, and I 

 did not think it was dead. As it did not move, I at first 

 thought it must have been detained a prisoner b}' some viscid 

 fluid peculiar to the plant. I found, however, that in reality 

 it was being tightly held by the falces of a bright yellow 

 spider, so exactly the colour of the yellow blossom of the 

 Barbarea vulgaris that at first (1 know something of botany) 

 I mistook the yellow legs of a spider for the multifid stigma 

 of the blossom. Last year I obtained two specimens of 



