Insects, 31 



bourhood, whicli I paid great attention to, but they did not produce 

 me a specimen. A. Lathonia was captured in a small almost barren 

 pasture adjoining the road, and was also taken from a blossom of the 

 dandelion ; soil heavy clay. I should be extremely obliged if you 

 would inform me whether this be the usual time of this butterfly's ap- 

 pearance. — W, Gaze ; Lavenham, Suffolk, October 6, 1842. 



Enquiry respecting a stridulant Insect. You would oblige me 

 were you to let me know the name of a little stridulant creature, to 

 which I frequently listened during the silent watches of the night in 

 the month of August. My elegant bed-chamber was in a heath- 

 thatched cottage in the island of Arran ; and before I fell asleep, and 

 when I awoke during the night, I generally heard a low stridulous 

 sound proceeding from something near the bed. It was like a watch- 

 man's very very feeble rattle — much more feeble than the sound of 

 the grasshopper ; and it was continuous, lasting however only while 

 I could deliberately count three or four. It was repeated at irregular 

 intervals of a minute, or rather more. The only inmates of the cot- 

 tage I could willingly have dispensed with, were strolling parties of 

 Goerius olens, or the "devil's coach-horse ;" but whether this was the 

 guard blowing his horn, the deponent knoweth not. If so, he could 

 have wished brighter angels to guard him during his slumbers. — D. 

 Landshorough ; Steveuston, Ayrshire, October, 1842. 



[Your correspondent will find in Kirby and Spence's ^ Introduction 

 to Entomology,' ii. 381-2, an account of the insects which most likely 

 produced the sounds he heard in "Archie Hamilton's cottage," at 

 Knockingelly. They were probably produced by "little beetles be- 

 longing to the timber-boring genus Anobium," — perhaps A. tessellatum, 

 Fabr. The Atropos pulsatorius [Termes pulsatorius, L.), so commonly 

 found amongst books, dried plants, &c., is also believed to make a 

 slight noise, and in fact has derived its specific name from this circum- 

 stance. — A. White; 61, Judd St., London, Oct. 11, 1842.] 



Deilephila Galii. A fine male specimen of this insect was taken 

 on the 15th of September on a heap of stones at Whitefield, near 

 Bury, a few miles from this place. — R. S. Edleston ; Cheetham, 

 Manchester, November 3, 1842. 



Achero7itia Atropos. On the 22nd of September Acherontia Atro- 

 pos (fem.), flew into a house near Heaton Park, to the great alarm of 

 some females assembled at tea ; the utterance of its shrill cry made 

 the matter worse: fortunately it was rescued from destruction. About 

 the same time a male specimen was captured on the highway near 

 Staley Bridge. These and the above specimen of D. Galii are in my 



