BR. J. ENT. NAT. HIST., 7: 1994 191 



WWF at Mai Po for enabling our work on the reserve and the Agriculture and Fisheries 

 Department of the Hong Kong Government for permission to collect in Tai Po Kau 

 and the Sai Kung country park. Back in the UK we would like to thank David Carter, 

 Martin Honey and Malcolm Scoble for access to the collections of the Natural History 

 Museum, London, and Ian Kitching for checking the identifications and current 

 nomenclature of difficult moth species. We are grateful to the library staff of the 

 Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford and those of English Nature, 

 Peterborough, for assistance with the current nomenclature of the host-plants. Special 

 thanks are due to Kent Li, not only for his notes on the above species and for his 

 company in the field but also for providing insights into life and entomology in Hong 

 Kong, which we, as visitors, would otherwise have missed. 



References 



D'Abrera, B. 1987. Sphingidae Mundi — Hawk moths of the World. Classey, Faringdon. 



Holloway, J. D. 1987. The moths of Borneo. Part 3. London. 



Irving, R. & Morton, B. 1988. A geography of the Mai Po Marshes. World Wide Fund for 



Nature, Hong Kong. 

 Li, K. H. K. (in prep.) Some observations on the life history of Sataspes infernalis and S. tagalaca 



(Lepidoptera, Sphingidae) reared in Hong Kong. 

 Mell, R. 1922. Beitrage zur Fauna Sinica (II). Biologie und Systematik der sud-chinesischen 



Sphingiden. Zugleich ein Versuch einer Biologie tropischer Lepidopteren uberhaupl. Berlin. 



(Translated excerpts provided by Kent Li.) 

 Tennent, W. J. 1992. The hawk-moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) of Hong Kong and south-east 



China. Entomologist's Rec. J. Var. 104: 88-112, 5pls. 

 Tennent, W. J. 1993. The hawk-moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) of Hong Kong and south-east 



China. Corrigenda. Entomoglist's Rec. J. Var. 105: 26. 

 Thrower, S. L. 1984. Hong Kong Country Parks. Government Information Services, Hong Kong. 



SHORT COMMUNICATION 



Some sawfly host plants not listed by Benson. — Robert Benson wrote the Royal 

 Entomological Society of London's key to the Symphyta in the "Handbooks for the 

 Identification of British Insects" series. It was published as Volume VI part 2 in three 

 parts, section a (1951), section b (1952) and section c (1958). Section a has been 

 reprinted with minor revisions by J. Quinlan and I. D. Gauld in 1981. Benson's key 

 listed the larval host plants that were known to him; the following additional records are 

 based on sawfly larvae collected and reared by the author, except where otherwise stated. 



Athalia cornubiae Benson. Benson lists this as larva unknown in section b but adds 

 the host plant as Sedum album L. in a supplement to section c. This plant is thought 

 to be native in only a few places in the Malvern Hills and Somerset but is found widely 

 elsewhere on old walls and buildings. There are very few records of the sawfly. On 

 9.x. 91 a specimen of a garden hybrid Sedum 'coral carpet' was received at the R. U.S. 

 Garden from a private garden in Pinner, Middx. The plant was being severely 

 defoliated by large numbers of greenish-grey larvae. These went down into the soil 

 in the rearing jar a few days later but no adults emerged in the following year. They 

 were of the Athalia type and there is little doubt that they were cornubiae. 



Caliroa cerasi (L.) has black, slimy slug-like larvae that are commonly known as 

 pear and cherry slugworms. They can be found grazing away the upper leaf surface 

 of many woody plants in the Rosaceae family. Benson lists Pyrus and Prunus species 



