Insects. 473 



Note on rearing the Death's Head Moth. Having observed in your January num- 

 ber (Zool. 398), an enquiry concerning the larva? of Acherontia Atropos, I am induced, 

 from having successfully reared a fine specimen of that species from the larva state, to 

 send you a short account of my mode of treating it. I obtained the caterpillar in Sep- 

 tember, 1840, and put it into a flower-pot three parts filled with earth, and covered it 

 with gauze, feeding it with leaves of the potato. In this state I kept it for three days, 

 taking care to keep the earth sufficiently moist to enable it to bury itself with ease. 

 On the fourth day it retired under the earth, and remained there until the middle of 

 January, when I took the chrysalis out of the earth and put it into a box filled with 

 bran. I found it near the bottom of the flower-pot, encased in a sort of cocoon of earth; 

 this I took care not entirely to destroy, but merely broke away enough to allow the 

 moth room to come forth. It remained in the bran until the 23rd of the following 

 June, when it came forth a beautiful and perfect insect. I was first induced to try the 

 experiment of removing the pupa from the earth into bran, in consequence of having 

 failed in rearing several larvae of those species which undergo their transformations 

 underground; and as I could only attribute this failure to the earth becoming too 

 hard for them to extricate themselves, I determined to assist them by removing them 

 in the winter into bran : and since I have pursued this plan, I have scarcely failed in 

 one instance. — H. B. Rashleigh ; Horton Kirbi/, Kent, January 15, 1844. 



Note on Formica rufa. Formica rufa, " the fallow ant" of Huber, occurs in vast 

 abundance at Buddon-wood, on the skirts of Charnwood-forest. The tract of ground 

 called Buddon-wood, consists of an abruptly rising hill of sienite, separated from the 

 Cambrian rocks of the forest on the N.W. by the marls of new red sandstone, and bor- 

 dered on the S.E. by the lias of Barrow. The hill is clothed with oak, pine and shrubs, 

 in many places huge masses of rock protrude, or lie scattered, as if a tremendous wall 

 had been thrown down by a giant hand. The roots of the oak wrap and bind around 

 these masses, as if to hold them on the steep ascent. Under the projection of these 

 rocks, and also the large protruding roots of the oak, the nests of these ants are gene- 

 rally constructed, the ant taking advantage of the overhanging rock and root to make 

 a solid covering to the nest. When the nest is formed in these situations, it has inva- 

 riably a broad surface in front, composed of a quantity of small bits of sticks, lichens 

 and leaves, mingled with the earth which accumulates around it, and varying in depth 

 from two to six inches, forming the covering to the various passages underneath. In 

 other places the nest is formed in a dry spot where a tree has been cut down, consisting 

 of the same heterogeneous materials, but mingled with a greater quantity of earth ; 

 rising in shape like a depressed cone, with a basal circumference of two yards or more. 

 Some of these conical nests which I have tried to demolish to procure some larvae, I 

 found to vary from two to three and a half feet deep, containing several bushels of ma- 

 terials ; in one I inserted my walking-stick to the tip before I met with resistance, and 

 when withdrawn it was covered in several places with crushed larvae. What few plants 

 are found in the immediate vicinity of the nests are stunted and withered, but in most 

 cases the ground is entirely bare for several yards round the nests; the ants either pre- 

 ferring such situations at the commencement of the young colony, or afterwards clear- 

 ing them in the formation of their nests. The number of these nests in this locality 

 is very great; for with the exception of the lower part of the wood, on the N.W. side, 

 where a large brook borders it, which, by overflowing, keeps it continually damp, they 

 cover the whole hill : and from sunrise till an hour after sunset, armies of the popula- 

 tion traverse every part of their dominion, the wood, seizing with relentless jaws every 



