20 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
although here phenomenal in its visits, can be taken 
almost every year not uncommonly in the South of Eng- 
land, but the remarkable hawk moth, the subject of this 
paper, is in Great Britain everywhere very rare except on 
occasions, in which no particular periodicity is visible, 
and then it is found in its own haunts in great profusion, 
from Perth to Deal, and from the Hull of Howth to 
Cromer; principally indeed on the coasts because its 
larvee feed on the bedstraw, that herb which gives that 
peculiar aromatic fragrance to the sand dunes, which line 
in so many places our shores. 
Its last appearance was in 1888 and most of our local 
entomologists made the acquaintance of its larve during 
that year for the first time, for during eighteen years not 
a trace of it had been seen, although the sandhills where 
alone locally it has ever appeared at all is a district 
perhaps better worked by entomologists than any other 
in the two counties. The unexpected apparition of this 
insect or rather of its larvee, for one of the points to notice 
is that the larve always seem more in evidence than the 
imagines, during so inclement a season as 1888, provoked 
as might have been expected considerable comment among 
entomologists. The phenomenon was indeed only one 
out of many kindred instances constantly occurring and 
universally recognized, but it seemed more emphasized 
perhaps in this case because the moth is a large species, 
not easily overlooked either as larva or imago, a great 
desideratum among collectors, and because of its apparent 
utter extinction for the preceding eighteen years. The 
affair then as I say created no small stir in entomological 
circles, and many papers appeared in the organs of the 
cult, elaborating various theories to explain this mys- 
terious recrudescence of Detlephila galw in the summer of 
1888. My own attention among other entomologists was 
