64 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



quadrimaculatus was taken among the chinks of bark, where they sub- 

 sist upon other subcortical insects and several species of Coccinnella, 14- 

 guttata, 14-punctata, and variabilis. The lady-birds, were no [doubt, 

 awaiting the visits of Aphides to the apple-blossoms just about open- 

 ing; however, I did not see any aphides, though I on several occasions 

 looked for them on the fresh young leaves and opening blossoms of the 

 apple trees. On the. 14th I saw the first white butterfly of the season, 

 Pieris napi (the green-veined white;) Anthocharis cardamines (tbe 

 orange-tip) was seen the same day. Many early spring bees of the 

 genus Andrcena were rolling themselves in the flower-heads of hawk- 

 need. These bees are best killed by dropping a little chloroform through 

 a hole in the lid of a small pill-box in which they have been enclosed 

 one at a time. In a minute or two the bee can be pinned and put in 

 the collecting box, where it will remain quiet, or at most only moving 

 its legs slowly. Hymenoptera are not so easily killed with chloroform as 

 the Diptera are. It is troublesome, unless collecting bees alone, to pill- 

 box each separately, and carry them home to be killed there by the 

 fumes of sulphur under a bell glass. On the 15th, in the sandy copse- 

 wood of Coolreany, the green tiger beetles (Cicindella campestris) were 

 flying about in the hot sunshine in the forenoon and middle of the day, 

 lighting often, and running quickly along the road tracks through the 

 wood. Sphcecodes ephippia, a small bee of the family Andrcenidce, was 

 found in same locality. Meloe proscarabceus (the oil-beetle ) was met with 

 in abundance, mostly females, slowly dragging their bloated bluish-black 

 bodies after them. Orange-tips, green- veined whites, and one or two 

 of the azure-blues (Polyommatus argiolus) were seen in the afternoon. 

 Great numbers of the peacock butterfly ( Vanessa 16) were met along 

 the skirts of oak-woods, hybernated specimens ; now and then a small 

 tortoiseshell ( Vanessa urtica), but none of the admiral ( V. Atalanta) ; 

 the hybernated specimens of the latter are seldom seen till May is well 

 advanced. This evening I tried if anything was to be got by sugaring, 

 but was most unsuccessful, as I had anticipated, from the wind having 

 been in the east all day, and the evening being clear and cold, almost 

 frosty. On the 16th, the orange-tips, (Anthocaris cardamines) were 

 coming out very freely and quite fresh ; the speckled wood butter-fly 

 (Lasiommata JEgeria) was seen for first time this season. I took a 

 number of fine specimens of the long-legged Hydrometra najas, inaccu- 

 rately called water spiders, in the brook in Borris Demense. Several 

 pairs were in coitu — the smaller males retained their amatory clasp of 

 the females even in death. On the 17th (Easter Sunday), I noticed 

 great numbers of Aphthona pseudacori, most of them in copuld, on the 

 young yellow irides by the edge of the Barrow, hopping about like fleas 

 if disturbed ; also, took Chlcenius vestitus from under a stone by the 

 edge of a stream. This evening, at 9 p.m., as the wind, which had been 

 S.E. through the day, had fallen, and as the night was dark, I set the 

 American moth trap, more as an experiment to see how the lamp would 

 work than in the hopes of catching anything. This moth trap has been 

 described by H. G. Knaggs, M.D., in the 2nd vol. of the " Etomologist's 



