5436 Insects. 



Mr. Stainton from tinkering 1 up anything which comes out of such a workshop. If he 

 is to continue this system, the value of the 'Manual' as a guide to nomenclature is 

 wholly and entirely lost. I had hoped that, after the terrible revolution which 

 Mr. Stainton caused among the Bombyces, and the ruthless manner in which he tore 

 asunder species hitherto united by the tenderest ties, he would have treated the 

 Noctuina in a more considerate manner, but I fear that he is one of those persons who 

 experience a sort of piquant enjoyment in flinging the apple of discord around them. 

 I am, however, much comforted by hearing from my most worthy friend Mr. C. R. 

 Bree that he is shortly about to publish a list of the British Noctuina, in strict 

 accordance with the arrangement of M. Guenee. — //. IJarpur Crewe ; Stowmarket, 

 Suffolk, January 7, 1857. 



Larva of Notodonla dictcea, $-c. — At p. 113 of the 'Substitute' Mr. Greene 

 alludes to the statement of Mr. Carfmel, at p. 5, where Mr. C. tells us that he once 

 took fifty brown and green larvae of Notodonta dictaea off birch. Now will Mr. Cart- 

 mel forgive me if I ask him, not only whether he is quite sure the larvae were really 

 N. dictaea, but also whether he is quite sure that it actually was birch upon which he 

 found and fed them ? I have been in the habit of taking the larva of N. dictaea for 

 the last twelve or fourteen years, and have had some little experience in its habits. 

 I have taken it upon, I think, every species of poplar which grows in this country, but 

 never in one single instance on birch. I never met with or heard of any entomologist, 

 British or Continental, with the exception of Mr. Cartmel, who had ever taken or seen 

 it upon that tree, and so firmly persuaded am J that it never feeds there, that I should 

 consider it nothing less than a miracle were I to beat or find a larva of N. dictaea on 

 birch. Now there is a species of aspen (I am not quite sure which, so will not hazard 

 a botanical mistake), which, in its young sucker state, so closely resembles a rank 

 growth of birch, particularly upon a dry peaty soil, that I am not at all surprised that 

 a moderate botanist should mistake one for the other: I was myself taken in by it, 

 some years since, upon one of our Derbyshire heaths, when I did not know so much 

 of Botany as I do now, and upon this very aspen, which I at first took to be birch, I 

 found nearly eighty eggs of N. dictaea, besides larva?, both of N. dict3ea and 

 P. palpina. Amongst these small aspens there are a number of genuine birches, but 

 though I have beaten these latter again and again I never saw a single larva of 

 N. dictaea, though I have not unfrequently beaten that of N. dromedarius, and several 

 times N. dictaeoides. Now I cannot help thinking that Mr. Cartmel has mistaken 

 these young aspen suckers for birch. It is only in quite their young state that they 

 assume this birch-like appearance: in a year or two they become genuine aspens. — 

 Id. ; January 1, 1857. 



Larva and Economy of Tceniocampa populeti. — The larva of this species seems to 

 be but little known : it feeds upon the aspen and probably upon other species of poplar, 

 residing between two leaves united by a web: it is very transparent, and always 

 colourless, a sort of yellowish white, with a black head. Many years since I reared a 

 brood from the eggs, and sent larvae to Mr. Curtis, who, I believe, made a drawing of 

 one of them. I have since frequently found them on tall aspens in our woods, but the 

 greater part are infested with the larvae of ichneumons. — Henry Doubleday ; Epping y 

 January 13, 1857. 



Eupithecia helveiicaria in Britain. — Mr. Logan kindly gave me a pair of Eupi- 

 theciae, which he bred from bright green larvae found upon juniper. I sent them to 

 my friend M. Guenee, and he informs me that it is the Eupithecia helveticaria of 



