Insects, 111 



between Shooter's hill and Footscray, walking by way of Half-way-street, 1 saw an im- 

 mense number of butterflies, which the warmth of the day had awakened from their 

 hybernation. Every one knows that in the spring many insects appear which have re- 

 mained torpid during the winter ; but the number I saw on Sunday was quite extra- 

 ordinary, there being hundreds of Vanessa lo, Polychloros, and Urticae ; the two first 

 species being the most numerous. They were sporting and fluttering about, and sip- 

 ping the honey from the flowers of the blackthorn, which was in great profusion. I 

 counted four within a space of half a yard, and they were proportionally thick wher- 

 ever a piece of blossom was to be seen. Gonepteryx Rhamni was in still greater num- 

 ber than any of the before mentioned species, and, with them, made a scene quite 

 wonderful, and such as I shall not soon forget. — /. W. Douglas ; 6, Grenville Terrace^ 

 Cohurg Road, Kent Road, April 20, 1843. 



Note on the occurrence of Coleopterous Insects during high Floods. Mr. Hewitson's 

 graphic account of his captures of beetles during a flood, I can well believe, having 

 once been witness to a scene somewhat similar. In the autumn of 1841, the Trent 

 overflowed its banks, and for a time covered the greater part of our rich meadows. 

 Having previously observed many beetles to be swimming about in the ditches, when 

 the water was rising, I took advantage of the circumstance, and, equipped with a can- 

 vas net and a number of bottles, waded into the meadows where the water was just 

 rising above the short grass ; and great was my surprise to see that every " bent " of 

 grass and every tall weed was completely covered with Coleoptera, clinging to each 

 other like swarms of bees, forming, to those who are accustomed to " see great things 

 in small," as lively a picture as possible of the alarm and confusion we may suppose 

 were caused among our ancestors by the great deluge. My employment, whilst wad- 

 ing amid these drowning myriads, was merely to draw my net along the surface of the 

 water, and to put the beetles, almost by handfuls, into the bottles ; but even this, at 

 last, grew wearisome, and I kept on carefully dragging my net, until it was half full of 

 beetles and vegetable fragments : this I then rolled up and carried home, where it took 

 all the spare time I could find on the three following days, to separate the entomolo- 

 gical from the botanical contents, and to put the former into spirits. The locality I 

 chose was at the foot of a high and well-wooded bank ; this, no doubt, added materi- 

 ally to the number of insects in the adjacent meadow. T have not yet had time to sort 

 out one half of the specimens 1 then put into pickle, but from what I have examined, 

 I judge that I am much more fortunate than Mr. Hewitson in point of species, though 

 not equalling him in the quantity of specimens captured. The species consist almost 

 entirely of the Geodephaga and Brachelytra : of these there are many I had never cap- 

 tured before. But independently of the intrinsic value of the captures, there is a feel- 

 ing of satisfaction acquired when one traverses a particular hunting ground during a 

 flood, and sees its whole produce spread out before our eyes, — knowing that it cannot 

 yiebl anything which is not immediately vi^ithin our reach. — Edwin Brown ; Burton- 

 on-Trent, April 28, 1843. 



Note on Entomological Collecting Boxes ; with description of one on a new principle. 

 Having devoted the greater part of my leisure time during the two past seasons to col- 

 lecting the smaller British moths, I was led to try several methods of securing them 

 when captured, in order to choose the best. I found that whenever I pinned small 

 moths in an ordinary chip collecting box, they invariably, on warm days, became too 

 much stiffened to allow of their being set in a neat and pleasing manner ; nor would 

 the relaxing box restore their pliancy sufficiently to prevent them from springing back 



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