Insects. 5433 



exhausted or impracticable, and is unquestionably the most successful method of ob- 

 taining- good specimens of the perfect insect which I know. Find an overhanging 

 bank of any sort, a hole where a tree has been blown down, round the edges of 

 a quarry, a landslip on a mountain-face or slope, however small or large, never mind 

 how barren the place is, banks on sand-hills, and particularly banks in lanes caused by 

 cuttings where the soil or gravel has fallen away a little from the vegetation. Having 

 found any such places, first look carefully under the overhanging grass, and, lifting it 

 gently with the left hand, pin and kill the moths and butterflies you find there; peer 

 well into the crevices before using your walking-stick : when you have got all you can 

 see, and also when you cannot see anything, you must draw the point of your stick 

 across the grass-roots, &c, hanging under the bank, and the chances are greatly in your 

 favour that one or more Noctuae fly out, or, what is more general, roll down the bank, 

 sometimes perfectly quiet, at others fluttering very much as they fall ; in any case have 

 a small net ready. Repeat this several times, and if windy or wet shake the place well. 

 To follow " bank-raking '' requires both patience and perseverance ; for, like pupa dig- 

 ging, you do not find nuggets in every hole ; and it is no joke walking on sand-banks, 

 where your progress is like lawyers journeying heavenwards; but it has this advan- 

 tage, — it can be most advantageously practised when pupa hunting is rather out of 

 season, and you get the insects as good as bred without further trouble. Where banks 

 are scarce, as on pasture-lands, I carry small bundles of grass or hay, peg them down, 

 and shake them whenever I visit the ground, and find it answer my purpose admirably. 

 It is true this process produces unlimited quantities of common moths and beetles ; 

 but sometimes you get a prize, either for your own cabinet, or, what is quite as pleasing, 

 for a friend. Never pass a " scarecrow," that is, a coat and hat fixed in a field to 

 frighten birds, without ascertaining what insect he has upon him ; be particular about 

 his hat, and shake his coat well. This is called " passing the doctor,'' and is another 

 term which may not be understood in the South. It is a successful plan to take 

 Plusias and the genus Heliothis, &c. — C. S. Greg son ; Edge Lane, Stanley, January, 

 1857. 



Ravages of Caterpillars. — In a former volume (Zool. 4546) I gave some account 

 of the injury done to the gardens of this village during the summers of 1853 and 

 1854. My observations were continued as far as practicable in the following season, 

 and I hoped to have communicated the result long ago, but have been disappointed 

 hitherto. However, the completion of the narrative, late as it has been deferred, may 

 not be altogether unacceptable. My first note upon the subject was taken on or about 

 the 21st of September, 1855, at which period, in two gardens to which my attention 

 was particularly devoted, all plants of the cabbage tribe were devoured, or nearly so, 

 with the exception of the large ribs of the leaves. But this food not sufficing for the 

 hosts of the vermin, ihey had attacked the turnips, the tops of which were rapidly dis- 

 appearing. Separated from the gardens only by a wall and a path, was a field of 

 rape, upon the first-sown portion of the contiguous side of which, where alone I could 

 pursue my investigations, the caterpillars were most abundant, and the white butter- 

 flies persevered in multiplying their broods to a late date. Very many of the larvae 

 were now fully fed, and were travelling away as usual previous to undergoing their 

 next change. Upon a considerable length of wall, on the face of which this change 

 had heretofore taken place very extensively, I did not on this occasion find more than 

 one, if one, chrysalis of the mottled caterpillar, though many of other sorts, while, of 

 the former, instances were numerous of those which had been victimised by ichneumon 

 XV. N 



