Moll asks — Insects. 4435 



description on our part is uncalled for, and would here be out of 

 place. 



Cenia Cocksii. A single specimen of this rare species of the Pel- 

 libranchiate order was found at Burghead near low-water mark. 



George Gordon. 



Bimie, by Elgin, July, 1854. 



(To be continued). 



Some American Snails naturalized in Yorkshire. — Some three or four years ago I 

 procured a great number of living Mollusca (apparently several species of Helix) 

 from a vessel recently arrived with cattle-bone from Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, 

 in the cargo of which they abounded. These were turned out in the garden to take 

 care of themselves, and now while I write a great number of them are still alive and 

 apparently healthy. It is a fact worthy of note to know that coming from a semitropical 

 country they have been able to withstand the region of our climate. The past winter 

 would be a severe trial to them, the temperature on one occasion falling even so low 

 as 3° below zero of Fahrenheit. — G. Norman ; Hull, August 4, 1854. 



Note on Zygcena Minos. — So little is yet known respecting the new Zygaena in 

 Britain, that it is hoped a few remarks made in a second Irish locality will not be un- 

 interesting. In this neighbourhood I first noticed Zygaena Minos in the summer of 

 1851, but unfortunately then referred it to what is described as a suffused variety of 

 Z. Filipendulae, a mistake which may possibly have occurred to other collectors in 

 England. The insect here appears about the first week in June, a fortnight earlier 

 than Z. Filipendulae, and is in perfection by the middle of the month : it then swarms 

 on many parts of the rock-strewn pasture so characteristic of the mountain limestone 

 district of the West of Ireland, where the stones frequently occupy the ground almost 

 to the exclusion of vegetation. I have not yet succeeded in ascertaining its food, but, 

 from the abundance in its haunts of Lotus corniculatus and Anthyllis vulneraria, it 

 seems very possible that either or both of these constitute its diet. Some eggs laid on 

 the 15th of June were hatched a few days ago, but I fear I shall not be able to rear 

 the larvae, through their refusing to eat. As regards the distribution of Zygaena 

 Minos in Ireland, it occurs all round Castle Taylor, and I have also traced it within 

 the limits of the county Galway as far as Garryland, eight miles south of this, and 

 Tyrone, near Kilcolgan, four miles to the north-west: it is more particularly abundant 

 towards the sea. From the prevalence in its favourite localities of certain plants, — 

 such as Gentiana verna, Dryas octopetala, Sesleria caerulea, Arbutus Uva-ursi, &c, 

 which are I believe common to a rather extensive tract in these parts, and especially 

 characteristic of the Burrin mountains in Clare, where the insect was first taken by 



