Insects. 5785 



Capture of Vanessa Antiopa at Ipswich. — I had the good fortune to obtain a good 

 specimen of Vanessa Antiopa in our own garden, on the 25th of August. — Samuel 

 Alexander; Northgate House, Ipswich, August 29, 1857. 



[A number of notices of the capture of Antiopa have been published in the 'Intel- 

 ligencer' and elsewhere. — E. iV.] 



Deilephila Galii at Kingston. — A female specimen of this rare species was found 

 in a spider's web in the nursery grounds belonging to the Messrs. Jackson, of this 

 town. It is in very good condition, considering its entanglement in the meshes of the 

 web when found. — A. F. Sheppard ; Rutland House, Kingston-on-Thames, September 

 10, 1857. 



Capture of Stenia punctalis,'$-c, in the Isle of Wight. — Stenia punctalis was very 

 abundant at Ventnor last July : I set out about a hundred specimens for my friends. 

 I met with nearly all the insects usually taken in the island at that season of the year, 

 including iEnectra Pilleriana and the rare Gelechia inornatella. — Id. 



Larvee of British Eupithecice. — I have now feeding one-third of the British species 

 of Eupitheciae, and intend exhibiting them at the next meeting of the Northern En- 

 tomological Society, with a view of inducing some of our members to investigate this 

 hitherto neglected genus. They are all beautiful larvae, some of them remarkably so; 

 and, although some of the perfect insects can only be distinguished by the most prac- 

 tised eye, the larva? are the most opposite things imaginable : thus assimilata of 

 Doubleday's list (Zool. 5140) feeds on the under side of currant-leaves, and is a long, 

 slender, light green looper, until the last skin, when it becomes brown ; and absyn- 

 thiata of the same list feeds upon the flowers and seed of Seuecio Jacobsea, and is a 

 short and very stout larva, red, yellow, all sorts of greens and light browns; indeed, 

 no two larvae are alike. — C. S. Gregson; Edge Lane, Stanley, September 13, 1857. 



[Here is another instance of heterocampous and isomyious Lepidoptera. See 

 Zool. 5523.— E. N.~] 



Capture of Mallota vittata on the Banks of the Thames. — I have been so fortunate 

 as to find, iu countless profusion, a dipterous insect the very name of which has only 

 crept into Britain, as it were, by stealth, and British examples of which appear almost 

 unknown. I may as well make a clean breast of it at once, and say that I had gone 

 so far as to regard this beautiful insect as new to Science, and, notwithstanding the 

 repeated warnings of the cautious, had ventured to give it a name. Mr. Haliday, 

 however, who is as remarkable for the extent of his knowledge as for the readiness 

 and obliging manner with which he communicates it, set me right on this point; and, 

 having compared my specimens with authentic ones received from Professor Loew, he 

 assures me he found them identical as species. The British history of this insect may 

 be given in a few words. It is figured at Plate 429 of Curtis's * British Entomology ' 

 as Helophilus Ruddii, from a specimen taken near Yarmouth, in Norfolk. Mr. 

 Walker, in the ' Insecta Britannica,' Diptera, i. 251, gives the name as a synonym of 

 Helophilus transfugus, to which species it certainly has but small resemblance. It is 

 due to Mr. Walker to say that he must have judged entirely from Mr. Curtis's figure, 

 because, when I had the pleasure of showing him the insect, it proved entirely new to 

 him. The following description may perhaps be useful : — 



Crown of the head black, becoming paler towards the antennae, which are black and 

 seated in a glabrous prominence ; face silvery white, with a raised glabrous black 

 line descending to the mouth ; metothorax dusky luteous, approaching to testaceous- 

 brown, with four conspicuous black vittae, of which the lateral ones are separated 

 XV. 3 L 



