ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES EOE, 1864. 127 



during the summer. No locusts however were seen. The order 

 Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, &c.,) has not yet recovered, at least 

 in our district, from the effects of the ungenial seasons of 1860 

 and 1862; saw-flies, sand-ioasps, and solitary bees being more 

 especially rare. Of sand-wasps I have only seen two species of 

 Pompilus.; Mellinus arvensis, and one single Pemphredon lugubris 

 this season ; whilst a chance Halictus, and two specimens of 

 Andrena Coitana, are all the solitary bees that I have taken. Of 

 Wasps, great numbers of females were astir in May. Afterwards 

 they became less abundant, and by the autumn became so rare 

 as to be seldom noticed. I am certain that I did not see half-a- 

 dozen of their nests, although I was constantly on the look-out 

 for them. Some of the common species of Bombus, such as B. 

 lucorum, lapidarius, and hortorum, are becoming plentiful enough, 

 but all the brown species, which appear to have suffered most 

 from the wet, continue rare ; and some other local and less com- 

 mon ones appear to have become extinct. 



Lepidoptera [butterflies and moths] were, I think, very few in 

 numbers. I occasionally saw a few common Whites, Meadow- 

 broivns, and Blues, but nowhere were they abundant. Anthrocera 

 Filipendulce, however, was exceedingly common on the sea-banks 

 south of Hartley. In all probability Moths will be plentiful 

 enough next year, their larva?, as before noted, being very numer- 

 ous in turnip fields ; and many gardeners are complaining of their 

 superabundance in kitchen gardens, where they are said to have 

 nearly destroyed all the " winter stuff." 



In Homoptera and Hemiptera [frog-hoppers, bugs, &c] some 

 rather nice species have been met with : one or two of the latter 

 being "new to science," or to the British Fauna. These I hope 

 to record by and by, and I beg to remind our members that I will 

 gladly receive any of this order that they may meet with in their 

 rambles. 



JDiptera [flies] were only moderately abundant, except in one 

 instance, when I noticed (in September) myriads of a pale gnat- 

 like creature, whose name I don't know, congregated on the top 

 of a wall, which they whitened with their numbers for more than 

 one hundred yards : the object of attraction I could not discover. 



