Insects. 4563 



males of Paecilocampa Populi sitting on the window and other parts of the shed, some 

 of them rather worn, but others in beautiful condition. Not being otherwise able to 

 account for so unusual an occurrence of an insect I have never before met with and 

 have always regarded as rather rare, I set it down to their having been driven in for 

 shelter in a sudden and violent storm of wind and rain that had taken place late the 

 night before, which was previously very calm and bright: however, the next day, 

 visiting the shed again, the night having been throughout remarkably quiet, I found 

 in it, to my great surprise, eleven more, some sitting on what I had before considered 

 an empty breeding- cage, but which, on close examination, I found to contain a female 

 of the same species, apparently lately out, and in fine condition : this of course ex- 

 plained at once the appearance of the males. Now, though it is a well-known mode of 

 capture of various species — of the Bombyx, &c, in particular — to expose a female in a 

 gauze-covered cage, yet the instance I mention is remarkable, both from the number 

 of males attracted by a single female in an out-of-the-way situation, under a north 

 wall and at a distance from trees, and their remaining after daylight, and reposing in 

 such a position as to be discovered and taken with the greatest ease: these facts may 

 be useful as hints in experiments with this mode of capture in respect of the rarer 

 Notodontidae. The female, being a desirable acquisition, was of course made a speci- 

 men of immediately, and I need hardly say that not a single male has appeared since 

 her removal. I was not aware of having placed in the cage any larva of P. Populi ; 

 but, on recurring to my notes of a Day in the New Forest last June, I find one of the 

 beating for an oak on the 22nd of that month "a large gray flattish, hairy larva, 

 irregularly marked with black," which, as it has never answered to its number in any 

 other form, I conclude was the producer of this moth, but from which I had ceased to 

 look for any perfect insect, concluding it to have been previously affected by some 

 parasitical devourer. — Octavius Pickard- Cambridge ; Bloxworth House, Dorset, 

 December 14, 1854. 



Remarkable Vitality in a Specimen of Sitona fusca. — I was much surprised this 

 morning, on taking up a phial containing insects collected at Petersham on the 28th 

 of September, to find a specimen of Sitona fusca alive, having been seven weeks all but 

 one day in the bottle. The laurel-leaves which had beeu enclosed with it still retained 

 a considerable aroma, though not of course that hydrocyanic smell which is so quickly 

 fatal to all insects. The Sitona was not only alive, but vigorous, travelling along at 

 little less than the customary pace, and much more actively than many Curculios do 

 when in full health. In the same bottle, which contains barely a cubic inch, and was 

 well corked, were three more of the same species, together with Apion striatum and 

 others, Halticae, Atomarise, Demetrias atricapillus, Notoxus monoceros and some small 

 BracheUtra, all, however, quite dead. I have remarked, in introducing insects into a 

 phial with laurel-leaves, that the Brachelytra are usually the first to yield, then the 

 Malacoderma and Geodephaga, and that the Curculeonidae resist the influence longest ; 

 Diptera and Hymenoptera seem very soon overcome. It is somewhat remarkable that 

 one Sitona should appear little affected under circumstances that killed three others. — 

 George Guy on ; Richmond, November 15, 1854. 



